


Broken Proximity Zone

by OpensUp4Nobody



Category: One Piece
Genre: Adventure, Aliens, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M, Mental Link, Romance, Science Fiction, Star Trek - Freeform, T'hy'la, Telepathy, sort of crossover but not really, vulcan mating bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-04-05 03:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 43,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4164363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpensUp4Nobody/pseuds/OpensUp4Nobody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stardate 46895.4, Commander Zoro and Lieutenant Commander Sanji were involved in an incident. This little accident resulted in their minds becoming very intimately intertwined, much to their horror. Sometimes, alien biology can be a tricky business.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Somewhere in the distance

**Author's Note:**

> If you know nothing about Star Trek, don't worry. I will hold your hand, we will get through this together ;)
> 
> XxxX
> 
> You've got a lot of nerve to try and bring me down  
> Baby, you haven't heard, that's not the way we run this town!  
> Cause when the times are tough, we turn them round!  
> We've got a lot to lose, the stakes are staggering  
> But we don't chose to lose the place that only brought us down  
> Though when the times are tough, we'll turn them round!
> 
> -"Somewhere in the Distance" The Hoosiers

The USS Thousand Sunny was gliding elegantly through the empty vacuum of space. The USS in the title meaning United Space Ship, and signaling its belonging to the United Federation of Planets, this may not have been an entirely accurate description of the situation. The ship was a part of the Federation, but it was privately owned and followed it's own, less traditional methods. They responded to federation emergencies and sent back data, but other than that they were a solo operation. It was more that the Federation tolerated them and accepted them as more of a help than a hindrance.

Captain Monkey D. Luffy sat in the captains chair, leaning back as stars zoomed past them. Luffy had gone jumping through hoops to get to were he was now. The young captain was originally bajoran, born on the planet Bajor, and had grown up in the chaos of the Cardassian occupation of his home planet.

The bajoran people were a very religious bunch, worshipping the prophets, who where later discovered to be non-corporeal aliens living in a wormhole near their planet, as gods. The bajoran people pierced their left ear in two places with a chain connecting them as a sort of religious sigil. Luffy had no such piercings, or faith in such prophets. The only thing connecting him to his people were the small ridges running down his nose in the place between his eyes. Other than, that he could have been mistaken for human.

Like most bajoran children, he had been forced to do his part to fight off those pale, lizard like cardassian tyrants. Spoon heads, they called them, after the spoon shaped divot in the center of their forehead. Luffy had been wounded in one of the encounters when he was about six and was taken in by one of the most infamous of the cardassian generals of the war. The cardassian people were known for being devious and cruel and this man was the most devious and most cruel.

Luffy had never talked about what had transpired in his time with the man who called himself Dragon, not even when he had showed up on Bajor out of the blue. By then the war was over and the Federation was overseeing the new bajoran provisional government and the cardassians were back in their own territory.

The boy was interrogated by the bajoran high council, but he gave away no information on the man or much at all about the cardassian people. All he said was that his time had made him as strong as he was now, an answer that failed to satisfy the council. However, when they could hold him for no longer, he was dismissed from the council to go as he pleased. That was when he had set off across the galaxy chasing his dreams. Luffy was somewhat of an enigma; despite the cruelty and hardship he had most certainly suffered, his personality was generally childlike. Maybe it was a defense mechanism of some sort, it was impossible to tell.

Luffy was determined to explore the galaxy in his own starship and for that he needed the best crew he could find. Unfortunately, at that time he had no crew and he had only a medium sized runabout ship named the Going Merry.

His first stop along his epic journey had been to a cardassian planet on the edge of the bajoran-cardassian border, too far into the neutral zone to belong to either side. Upon landing, he was looking for a place to find something to eat when he had happened upon a man tied to a post in the middle of a courtyard.

This man was one Zoro Roronoa, a top notch, Federation trained, weapons specialist. He was human by appearance and he had been born on earth, in japan, but his heritage was mixed; as many people's were these days, leading to a combination of subtle nonhuman characteristics like his strangely green hair and inhuman strength. He hadn't spent very long as a member of the Starfleef, working for the Federation. He left not long after his first assignment despite his abilities, in order to pursue a more interesting topic; bounty hunting. He chased people halfway across the galaxy to take them down and he was exceedingly good at this job.

When Luffy found him, he had been in a lull between jobs when he had been arrested for saving a little bajoran girl from one of the many angry cardassian townspeople. The planet had been a POW camp for the cardassian high command, so now there was a mix in the people living there with violent results. Military level cardassians did not seem to mix well with the people who had once been their captives. Yes, there was a Federation vessel that came by every now and then to check on the conditions of both parties, but there was little that they could do and the operation was somewhat of a joke.

Unfortunately for Zoro, even if he had not rescued that girl he would have been arrested for war crimes against the home world of Cardassia. He had preformed with much honor in fighting off the reptiles on his way to collect the bounty on one of their generals and they weren't happy about it.

Luffy, being a very impulsive individual, jumped a very large and well guarded fence and cut free the infamous bounty hunter, immediately demanding that Zoro join his crew.

Zoro had been grateful of his being cut down, but was reluctant to join Luffy's nonexistent crew, he came around when they were fighting their way off the planet. Apparently, Luffy had more to him than the green haired man had initially thought. And thus, Luffy had his weapons specialist and first officer.

Zoro now sat off slightly behind Luffy's seat and a little to the right, behind his weapons consoled, looking bored. Part if him was wishing that there was something out there to shoot at, a big part of him actually.

The next stop in Luffy's journey had been to the planet Trill. The trills were a very unique group of people, their distinguishing feature was the line of small leopard like prints that ran down either side of the forehead and ran down the entirety of the body in a strip, ending at the toes. The Trills ran a very intensive learning program on their planet and the goal of many people was to host a symbiont. The Trills had the unique ability to bind themselves to rather slug like symbionts through a cavity in the stomach. This way the symbiont got a place to live and the host was given the memory of every previous host in a strange symbiosis.

On this planet, Luffy and Zoro met one of these hosts, an exceptionally tall man by the name of Brook. Brook was the symbiont name, after a symbiont was passed into a host the symbiont name was taken as a last name, but it was generally by what the host was called from that point on. Once symbiont and host were joined they became one person, the host would more than likely die without the symbiont and if the host died with the symbiont still inside then the creature would die as well.

Brook had lived eight lives, each carrying heavy weight to him, living and dying though so many lives carried much with it, and in this life he was an accomplished musician. Luffy had immediately taken a liking to him and had asked him to join his currently two person crew. Brook, having been bored with his current job of playing for large crowds of people, joined him without much protest. And Luffy had a musician, every good ship needed a musician to set the mood.

Currently, Brook was playing an earth made violin, trying to lighten the mood from the seemingly unending dullness. This silent boredom would not be tolerated onboard Luffy's ship.

The third stop along the way was actually a run in with an Orion slave ship. The Orion were a species well know for their sex slaves. The Orion males tended to be large, muscular, and bald with the classical Orion green skin. Orion females were very widely known for being... provocative in their mannerisms and were sold as slaves. They produced pheromones that were often irresistible to males.

Anyway, the Orion ship had been badly damaged by an unexpected solar flare and was sent adrift. The Merry had answered their distress call. Luffy managed to dock the merry on the other ship and board them in order to see what the problem was. He would have hailed the other ship the the residual energy from the solar flare made communication impossible.

Onboard were a few Orion women, two Orion men, and a woman who looked almost human. The ship was trying to return to their home world and Luffy offered to pull along their ship all that way. It was really strange how they had asked. One of the Orion men had demanded that they be aided, then he had sent the women to get all up in Luffy's face, but the kid just looked confused. Regardless he still said yes. Luffy, it seemed was unaffected by the pheromones. Zoro also able to maintain an unaffected composure through a combination of biology and strict self control. Brook, however, was going crazy and asking to see their panties even though they were hardly wearing anything already.

Luffy didn't really care about the Orions, he was more interested in the other woman, she was the one who had been flying the ship. She had bright orange hair and inhumanly flushed skin, when she spoke to one of the men her teeth looked sharp and even, and she had a clever gleam in her eye. The Ferengi characteristics in her were unmistakable even without large ears and ridges. This woman, whose name it happened was Nami, was one eighth Ferengi. That was enough for some of the features to be washed down, but still noticeable. The ferengi were a relatively unattractive race by most terms. They tended to be short, and red, with pointed teeth, and huge ears connecting to their bulged forehead. Nami was lucky enough not to look like that, but as they got to know her later, it was apparent that the ferengi taste for profit had not been lost on her. She was a conniving little witch and Zoro hadn't trusted her from the moment he met her.

The Orion ship was taken to the Orion home world without much incident. Along the way, Luffy had asked Nami to join his crew as the navigator because he didn't know where the hell he was going and she laughed in his face. Somehow, this did not get Luffy down, upon returning to Zoro's side he only said that she would see things his way in a matter of time.

They touched down in an oddly small village, they had been expecting more from the port of a slave ship. This town was desolate.

As soon as they were on the ground, the group of outsiders was pushed to leave, but Luffy had decided to follow Nami around and bother her about becoming his navigator. As they walked around Luffy saw that this little village was rather run down, it appeared to be a different kind of slavery than what the Orion were known for, many different groups of people milled around doing tasks unhappily under of watchful eyes of their green skinned overlords.

Nami had not been born in this place. She had been born on earth, but her parents were killed when a transport ship crashed on it's way to the moon colonies. From there she was adopted by a human woman named Bell-meré and became sisters with a blue skinned, antenna-ed, Andorian girl named Nojiko. When Nami was eight they were going on a trip to the vacation planet, Riza, when their transport ship was boarded by Orion slave traders who abducted them and forced them to work in this shitty little village.

Contrary to what it might seem, the Orion women are the ones who are the actual slave masters. They used their pheromones to manipulate men to do their bidding. The woman who ran the village Nami lived in was named Arlong. She was arrogant, cold, and Bell-meré never could stand to see a good person beat down by someone like that and for her bravery she died. After her adopted mother's death Nami was sucked into Arlong's plots. She had to deliver the girls and find clients and she was very good at her job both in transporting and handling the financial aspects. But unbeknownst to them Nami was actually saving up to bribe a transport ship into carrying her sister and a good deal of the villagers out of this stupid slave colony.

When Luffy figured out what was going on he couldn't stand for it. He fought alongside his crew mates until Arlong and her goons were all dead or disabled then they transported all of the villagers to a federation station to explain the situation, using a ship Nami stole. She also used her saved up money to pay for all the people to get a ticket for the long journeys home. After that, she joined the crew and Luffy had his navigator.

Nami now sat up front, at the helm, adjusting the course every so often to correct their path. She was an excellent navigator.

Their next stop was in Klingon space, on a small colony planet. Going anywhere in klingon space carried with it a good deal of danger, given the klingon way of violence, and it was not altogether surprising that the planet was under attack by another plant not far away. The Merry was struck down in the crossfire of the battle and they crashed just outside of a small town. Luckily for them, a young man came to their aid. He was klingon with the dark skin and ridged forehead of his people, but he was not your typical klingon male. He was scrawny, not at all like the muscular alpha males who strutted through the streets of Kronos, the klingon home world. He had a long nose and a welcoming face. But above all of that he was undeniably a coward. When he saw the crash he had cautiously approached, boldly calling out for any survivors although his legs shook from fear. Being a coward was the worst thing a person could be in klingon culture and this man, whose name was Usopp, got hell for it. He worried everyday that the towns people might get sick of him and cut off his head with a bat'leth, the bow shaped, four pointed klingon weapon of choice. So, he told magnificent lies to keep them amused rather than angry. He was a fool, but he wasn't dead.

Upon meeting the crew, he agreed to help fix their ship. He liked to tinker with things and he was a fair engineer, but he was more an inventor than a ships repair man. Despite this, he got the ship up in running again. Luffy asked him to join the crew, but he had at first declined for fear of the unknown, but then the towns people decided that they had had enough of him and ran him out. Usopp hopped aboard the Going Msrry and they got off the planet just in time. And Luffy had both a story teller, and an inventor as part of his crew.

Usopp was, at the moment, writing something out on a PADD, probably designing a new machine.

It was at Usopp's request that they made their next stop, still in klingon space, to a mobile restaurant called the Baratie. They had all been eating stale replicator food for what felt like forever. The replicator could never quite get food exactly right. It was good, but it was just not the same. Usopp said that if they wanted to find a cook then the Baratie was the best restaurant this side of the galaxy.

The restaurant had been very prim and proper upon first glance and it smelled great. The first view Luffy got of it was when he was dragged out of his ship by the restaurant's angry owner. They Nami had been getting ready to dock the ship when Luffy and Usopp were goofing off Luffy had tripped and accidentally fired a shot through the roof of the building. Thankfully, the Baratie had a good forcefield system that in place that had deflected most of the damage, but the owner had not been very happy. When asked who had fired the shot, everyone had pointed to Luffy, who sat guiltily on the floor.

The owner, a large Klingon man named Zeff, had dragged Luffy inside saying that he would have to work off the damage. The rest of his crew shrugged and debated about going inside, they wanted to go in, but Nami had all the money, and she refused to pay for them to eat. She told them all to suck it up and eat replicator food until they had a real cook.

Inside, Zeff was stopped from dealing with Luffy when he saw a member of his staff humiliating a customer. The customer was a brash Klingon man who had been arrogantly showing off when his waiter decided that he needed to learn a lesson. This waiter, who was actually the sous-chef working in place of a waiter, was a tall, lean, blond man named Sanji, who was shockingly not Klingon. The chef and owner started screaming at each other, when some men dragged in a scrawny andorian man who was begging for food. He was, of course, denied the food and promptly kicked out.

Later, while Luffy had been out to the task of dishwashing, while the actual dishwasher was broken, Sanji slipped out the back with a plate of food. Luffy watched through a window in the door as Sanji gave the plate to the starving andorian under the dome of breathable air. Luffy was thoroughly impressed and when Sanji came back inside Luffy asked him to join his crew. Sanji denied him, saying that he had a debt to Zeff and he couldn't just leave like that.

Sanji was born destined to be an emotional mess. His mother had been vulcan, dark hair and eyes, pointed ears, olive skin, limitedly touch telepathic, cold, calculating, and unemotional, as any good vulcan was. His father had been a Betazoid, Betazoids had a particular knack for being telepathic, Sanji's father had been good enough that he could read the thoughts of everyone around him all the time. The culture of the Betazoids was very open and lively, a very stark difference to the vulcan way, very much opposite of each other, but Sanji had been born all the same.

He was blond, taking after his father, his ears were pointed, his blood ran vulcan green, and his eyes were swimmingly dark, as was the betazoid way. He was raised on Vulcan with all of the vulcan children who chastised him for his heritage. He was taught in the vulcan way of emotion suppression as soon as he was able to learn. This was made even more difficult when he started to acquire his telepathic abilities.

Sanji had the ability to sense the emotions of others, making emotion suppression rather difficult when it was not just his that he was trying to suppress. It was probably good that he grew up on Vulcan because there wasn't much for him to sense with all the people being emotionless.

Despite his difficulties, Sanji did exceptionally well in his school work, particularly in the sciences. He loved science.

When he was six he went with his parents on an away mission to a part of klingon space when they were boarded by a bunch of klingon raiders. The ship was totally wrecked, but Sanji just managed to get through an escape pod in time. Unfortunately, he had been dragged into this escape pod, and was ejected with, one of the klingons whose name was Zeff.

On the planet they had crashed on there was nothing but craggy rock and they had limited food. Zeff set up a distress beacon and pulled only a small amount of food out of the supply bag for Sanji, keeping the rest to himself.

They were stuck there for more days than Sanji could remember. He ran out of food and began to starve. He glared over at Zeff who still had he grand bag of food. One night he snuck over to the bag and yanked it open, crazed by the hunger, and found it filled only with assorted repair tools. There had never been any food inside, Zeff had given it all to him and Sanji would never be able to repay that kindness, but he would never let another person starve.

Not long after, a ship picked them up. Zeff decided to take Sanji in and started up his own restaurant, training Sanji intensely and with much violence. Sanji rose to the challenge and would always strive to do better although he did not forget his love of science. He saved up the money to buy a PADD, where he taught himself all sorts of things that the students back on Vulcan would be learning, very advanced material, he would never let them get better than him.

Zeff's restaurant had taken shape with it's boisterous, and mostly klingon, crew. This had been a problem at first. Although, Sanji had been trained to suppress his emotions he sometimes found it hard to function when surrounded by so many overwhelmingly aggressive people. It messed with his moods. Eventually, he found his balance, his dangerously unstable balance.

When he was seventeen he was sous-chef, having worked his way to the top. That was when he told Zeff he wanted to go to the Vulcan Science Academy. Zeff had not objected, saying only that if that's what he wanted then that's where he would go, and he had gone through four grueling years at the academy before graduating in the top percent of his class. This was partially due to his competitive nature and the fact that his Vulcan classmates all seemed to look down on him for his emotional tendencies and in your face attitude, which only made him more emotional and in their faces.

After graduating, he returned to the Baratie, Zeff tried to get him to work for a lab or something, but he had refused. It was Sanji's dream to explore the stars, but for now he knew where his place was and they was at the Baratie.

That starved Andorian from before returned with the rest of his crew and tried to destroy the Baratie, but were defeated by Luffy's crew. After that Sanji agreed to go with Luffy, prompted by the Baratie staff. Then, Luffy had his cook and science officer.

Sanji was sitting over at the science station to the far right, looking down at the numbers flashing at the screen in front of him. He looked bored but sometimes it was hard to tell with that vulcan expression plastered over his face.

On the outskirts of romulan space their ship was stopped by a border patrol ship. The romulans didn't like people in their space and the federation didn't want anyone upsetting the situation with the Romulans. They had managed to get past the neutral zone and had been stopped by a romulan ship. As the romulans decloaked the Going Merry was hailed, the image of a woman appearing on the display screen.

She had the typical dark hair, slanted eyebrows, and and pointed ears but lacked the forehead ridges that made Romulans look different than Vulcans, they did come from the same common ancestor after all. This trait was not uncommon but it was in the minority among the Romulan people. Romulans shared many traits with vulcans but being emotionless was not one of them, the Romulans were a deeply passionate people, but were very suspicious and xenophobic.

She introduced herself as Robin Nico, her ship was just out on a diplomatic mission when they saw their ship and thought they might be lost and should probably help them out before they got into any trouble. The underlying threat was obvious, but instead of turning around and going back was not something Luffy was interested in, so he invited the romulans on board. The crew seemed none too happy, but Robin smiled cryptically and accepted.

Once onboard Sanji prepared a meal and everyone ate. At one point Luffy asked Robin to become a member of their crew as their diplomat. To everyone's shock she accepted. She ditched her crew and went with them out of romulan space. Everyone thought she was probably a spy, but Luffy didn't seem to care if she was as long as she did a good job while she was there. And Luffy had his diplomat, which was really good because he had the political sense of a dead duck.

Robin sat in a seat near Luffy, sitting back and reading on her PADD. Over the course of her time with them she had gained their trust and didn't care whether she was a spy or not.

Next stop was to the icy moon, Andoria, were they met an old human doctor and her creation. This creation was a sentient reindeer constructed with Changeling DNA, allowing it to limitedly change form. The creation, whose name was Tony Tony Chopper, had been the reason that Dr. Kureha had been banished from earth and the reason her partner, Dr. Hiluluk had been killed. Any manipulation of DNA was taken very seriously after the eugenics wars of the 1990s.

From his construction Chopper was taught all kinds of things, but he acquired an interest mainly in the medical practice, so that's what he learned. When the straw hats showed up with a heavily wounded Zoro, who had just lost a fight to the galaxy's greatest swordsman, Chopper showed his great skill and Luffy asked him to join the crew. He was hesitant at first but he had never really gone to see much, so he had agreed. And Luffy had his doctor.

The final stop was to some jungle like planet, they were there to try finding more food, but they found something much more interesting instead. On the surface of that planet there was a man with a huge ship.

The guy had been ecstatic to see them, he had after all been stuck on that planet for nearly two years. This man was Cutty Flam, also known as Franky. He was human but his hair was bright blue and he was partially made of metal. When he was ten he was picked up by a Borg cube and partially converted into a cyborg, as the Borg do, but he had been abandoned after the cube had unexpectedly been cast off by the federation. From there he was raised by a man who built ships and for a long time that's all he did, building and engendering were his passions.

He had been all set to get the final finishing touches laid on the latest ship he had built when anchoring stabilizers of the space station he had been on destabilized and sent him drifting in some random direction. He hadn't even noticed until he was back up on the ship's bridge. He was the only one on board and the ship had little to no stored energy. He only just managed to land the thing on a planet. The ionization in the atmosphere was too much to get a distress signal out and he didn't have any spare dilithium crystals for fuel, so he was stuck for two years.

In that time he had done what he could to keep himself busy by pimping out the ship he called the Thousand Sunny. Then the straw hats had turned up and offered to help. Franky said that if they got him off the planet then they could have the ship, Luffy said he would take the offer, but only if Franky became their engineer. Franky gratuitously accepted those terms and the dilithium crystals were put into the Thousand Sunny. This vessel became the main ship and the Merry became a shuttle. And Luffy had his Engineer.

In the present, Franky was down in the engine room, helping the ship to function more smoothly.

Now the Sunny was humming along at only impulse speed to save energy. They were dangerously low of fuel, their dilithium crystals were crumbled to pieces, nearly completely used up. Sanji had been frantically scanning for any signs of dilithium in the surrounding areas.

When he finally found some, it was located on a medium sized m-class, habitable, planet with a relatively small population on it. This was rather unfortunate, it would have been much easier if it were just an empty planet, now they had to deal with other aliens and that was always a gamble.

As they approached the planet they were contacted by it's inhabitance.

"On screen," Luffy said, nodding to Usopp who reached over to accept the message.

On the screen a rather pale and bland man appeared. He was bald and his features were mostly humanoid, but he had four pale pink eyes that blinked back at them.

"Greetings," he said warmly, "Is there anything we can help you with? We don't usually get visitors out this way."

That would be true, they were on the edges of explored space. At least they wouldn't have to explain who they were to a non space fairing civilization. Starfleet and the federation didn't like that much. They were supposed to avoid messing non-space age worlds, it was their prime directive.

Robin spoke up from her place next to the captain's chair, it was better if she did all the talking. "Yes, our dilithium crystals are low on energy and were were wondering if we could trade for some. We have detected dilithium on your surface."

The alien nodded, seemingly glad that they were there for such a mundane reason and not there to reck their shit, "Very well, I can set up a meeting with our trade leaders if you like, that should not be a problem. You are free to beam down, we will send the coordinates now." The display flashed and numbers were sent into their transporter system.

Robin nodded in thanks and gave a short farewell.

Luffy looked at her, "What do you think?" he asked, they always had to be cautious when dealing with an unknown species.

"I pulled the information on this planet from the computer," Robin stared down at her PADD, "they have no history of any trouble or violence. They have actually been nothing but helpful, although they have never shown any desire to leave their planet."

Luffy smiled, "Good." Although part of him would have been excited to fight for the dilithium.

At the science station Sanji threw in his opinion, "Something about that place feels weird." His betazoid abilities were often useful in sensing something wrong.

"Are they hiding something?" Luffy asked.

Sanji shook his head, "No, something just feels kind of weird."

"That may be because the inhabitants are telepathic," Robin mused, "From what I can tell, they have their own telepathic channel by which they communicate amongst each other."

"That would explain it," Sanji admitted. He hated planets like this, especially when he was out of the telepathic loop. It always felt creepy. Like he was out of tune with everything around him.

"If you can't handle it, cook, you can always stay back here and look after the ship," Zoro said with a stupid little smirk on his face. Dammit, he thought he was so cool.

"I'll be fine, marimo," Sanji replied through gritted teeth.

"You sure? Because last telepathic planet we went to we had do keep you out of range."

"Those were completely different circumstances!" Sanji whined. He had to be kept out of rang because the people of that particular planet found his mind to be distasteful in a very Xenophobic sort of way.

"Did I just hear a vulcan display an emotional inflection?" Zoro teased, cupping his ear and leaning in closer as if trying to hear Sanji's words better. Sanji didn't exactly follow the exact vulcan habit of being completely unemotional, but he tried to keep himself composed. Emotions were common on his face, but Zoro would still use his vulcan heritage against him. The reason it annoyed the blond was because as soon as Zoro would mention it he would try to compose himself, but he found it incredibly difficult to mask anger.

"I'll show you emotional," Sanji said under his breath as he stood from his seat and started off toward Zoro, intent on kicking his face in.

"Not on the bridge, boys," came Robin's calm voice, breaking off the anger. Zoro looked irritated, but Sanji turned into a wobbly puddle of goo, apologizing to Robin for being so inconsiderate.

While Sanji was still apologizing Luffy spoke up over the noise, "Zoro, Sanji, Robin, and Nami, you're with me. Let's go get that dilithium," he grinned and the rest of the crew grinned with him, they had some mother fucking aliens to charm the hell out of. Or rather the dilithium. The chances of success in this case were probably about seventy percent. Sure, Nami and Robin were excellent at getting a good deal and not insulting people, but sometimes things happened. Sometimes Luffy happened was probably more accurate. Whenever deals fell through it always seemed to trace him. It was never intentional, usually it was going where he shouldn't and unleashing some hidden horror. Or sometimes the deal would fall through because the other party decided that they would rather murder them than take their trade. Hopefully, this time it would go smoothly.


	2. Space Oddity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mind melds are dangerous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm stepping through the door  
> And I'm floating in the most peculiar way  
> And the stars look very different today  
> Here am I sitting in my tin can  
> Far above the world  
> Planet Earth is blue  
> And there's nothing I can do
> 
> -"Space Oddity" David Bowie

The away team walked excitedly from the bridge all dressed up in their official Starfleet uniforms. Usually, they just wore casual clothes, a pleasure they could get away with not being an official part of the Federation fleet, but away missions were special. Missions called for proper proceedings, at least when they were negotiating with other aliens, their presences reflected on the rest of their people; it was best not mess it all up.

Every away mission was at least a little interesting, even when it was for something boring, like trade. The away team for this mission would be: Luffy, Robin, Nami, Sanji, and Zoro, they were all going for different reasons.

Luffy went on all the away missions unless expressly forbidden. He was under the impression that as the captain he must go on all excursions in case something awesome happened. Robin was the diplomat, therefor this sort of thing was her actual job and she loved to be manipulative. Sanji was good for sensing mood changes, which could be good in many scenarios whether it be for danger or for reading lies. Nami was the best at haggling and stealing, although hopefully they wouldn't have to steal anything in this situation. The Federation would throw a fit if they discovered half of the things that Nami had done, but what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Zoro was there just in case things got out of hand, this happened way, way too often. Sometimes things would be going just fine and then suddenly, bam, they're under attack. They weren't allowed to go down with any weapons, so having one more person could always be helpful, plus, he was like their security guard, he had to come otherwise he lacked purpose.

"Let's get this done fast," Zoro sighed as they made their way toward the transporter room, "These people seem boring."

"Would you rather them we aiming photon torpedoes at us right now?" Sanji snorted, honestly he was in agreement with the moss head, but he wasn't about to say that. He would claim that these people were the most interesting in the universe just to make Zoro annoyed.

Zoro seemed to consider the question Sanji had posed for a moment, "Yeah," he decided, "but only if we could avoid them and then blast them out of the sky. Happy ending for all- I mean, for us."

"You are a terrible person," Sanji said with a very vulcan degree of emotionlessness plastered across his face, he was mentally preparing himself for the people who awaited them on the surface. He had to reinforce the mental shields to keep himself to himself.

He first had to distance himself from is own emotions, then those of his friends. Currently, that wasn't so hard. He could not sense anything from Nami, because she was part ferengi and she could sense nothing from Robin because she was a romulan. Zoro was on the harder side to read, sometimes Sanji could feel his emotions and other times it was very difficult. He supposed it was due to a biological factor along with a limited emotional range to begin with.

"I like to be entertained," Zoro shrugged, oblivious to Sanji's focus on emotional maintenance.

"Why don't you go entertain yourself by transporting us then," Nami said, as they walked through the automatic door of the transporter room. It wasn't a particularly large room, but it was big enough that they could transport in medium sized cargo comfortably. There was a console full of buttons and screens to set up the transport and the actual pad was near the door. It was up on a raised stage, two lighted circles on the floor marked where they should stand.

They only had two transport spots because that was all Franky had available when he was building the ship. He was always meaning to install more, as this was a bit of an inconvenience, but things always seemed to be getting in the way.

"Why don't you ask mister science over there to do it, isn't that part of his job," Zoro grumbled, jabbing a finger in Sanji's direction.

"Transporters are part of the engineering department, idiot," Sanji said evenly, maintaining his composer completely. Well, maybe not completely, no proper vulcan would call someone an idiot. A proper vulcan would call them an 'individual with an intelligence level below the normal range', but the vulcans were a bunch of pompous pricks anyway.

"Do it, Zoro, or I'll raise your debt," Nami threatened. That was always her go to threat, any excuse to suck profits out if people. Sure, she hadn't been raised on ferengi values, but she had her own rules of acquisition.

Zoro gave in without much protest, transporting them wouldn't be difficult, but as soon as Nami told him to do it all he wanted to do was refuse. "Geez, fine. You just better hope my finger doesn't slip when in adjusting the coordinates." One misplaced number and Nami could find herself floating through the vacuum of space for her remaining moments. He walked over and put the proper coordinates into the machine and waited for Nami and Luffy to go down first. They shimmered blue for a moment as the humming of the transporter did it's job, sending a copy of their atoms into a different place in space. Robin and Sanji followed suit. Once they were both on, Zoro plugged in his own coordinates on a timer and jumped up onto the transport pad. Within seconds he felt the tingle of their particles being scanned and deconstructed, then being pieced back together on the planet's surface; perfection. Technology was a wonderful thing.

The actual destination of their transport was into a hall with a very tall ceiling the color of ivory. The architecture was astoundingly beautiful, but Sanji wasn't currently interested in that, he was more focused on the flow of conciseness around him. It was a little overwhelming at first and he had to stop himself from reaching out to it. There was no telling what might happen if he did that, it could be good or bad. It was better not knowing in this case.

There were two of the aliens in the room, smiling pleasantly at them. "It is good to meet you," one said.

"Nice to meet you too," Luffy laughed.

The other alien spoke hesitantly, "We did not expect that you would bring so many," he was making a nervous motion with his hands to show his anxiousness.

"We can send some back, if you like," Robin said pleasantly. Luffy, Zoro, and if needed, Sanji, could be sent back without much issue.

"No, no, that is not necessary," the first alien said hurriedly, not wanting to offend them, "You may all stay here, but if you could, we would be glad if there were not so many in the room at a time. Our people are very much physically solitary, so many people with such strange minds in one place is a bit shocking on the senses."

Robin nodded in understanding, it took a degree of grace to deal with the quirks of meeting a foreign species, "Very well, how many can be in a room?"

"Two at the most," said the alien who had spoken first apologetically, "The other three will be free to explore our gardens in the mean time.

Robin turned to look to the captain, one eyebrow raised.

"Sanji, Zoro and I can go to the gardens," Luffy decided.

Sanji wanted to protest to leaving the girls, but it was true enough that he wouldn't be much use at the moment and Robin would take care of them, he had underestimated the impact being in this place would have on him, he was too covered in telepathic signatures. Instead, he nodded in time with Zoro. Altogether, the three of them were lead out by one of the aliens down a series of halls and out into a garden filled with all sorts of strange plants.

"Here you are," the alien said, if you need anything-"

"We have communicators," Zoro cut him off, motioning to the small triangular communicator on his chest.

The alien nodded, "Then I will leave you now," he said, turning back toward the direction they had just come from. As soon as he had turned, Luffy sprinter off toward the maze with a whoop of glee; mazes meant adventures.

"What was the deal with that?" Zoro asked, enquiring about the strange aliens, not to Luffy's childishness. He glancing at the retreating figure as the two remaining crew mates began to walk around the maze of a garden. They walked more slowly as Luffy proceeded to make himself lost.

"Maybe they're just a little afraid of foreigners," Sanji suggested.

"Do you think that Robin and Nami will have a problem with them?"

"No, they don't seem hostile," Sanji said, "only nervous." Although, his perception was a little murky at the moment.

"I just hope they're willing to fork over the dilithium to us."

"Agreed."

Zoro cast a look around, "I don't like it here."

"Here on the planet, or here in this maze?"

"In this maze, it's weird."

"I wouldn't think it would seem much different than when you just walk around, seeing as you seem to get yourself lost walking in a straight line."

"Shut up, I do not."

"Don't even try to lie about it, I'm not going to believe you. Maybe your brain just doesn't understand the concept of intentionally getting lost when you do it accidentally so often. I bet you could walk through this maze the first time through with that logic."

"What kind of a vulcan are you, that's about the least logical thing I've ever heard."

"Fine, I was just making conversation, stop being such a dick about it."

Zoro angrily mumbled something but it was lost on Sanji, and they walked silently after that. Normally, this sort of silence would have bothered Sanji, but at the moment he was a little distracted. As the blond walked, he could feel a rising presence on the edges of his consciousness. He could feel it reaching out to him stinger than all the others, but it was like they were being separated by a thin barrier.

This sort of thing was not entirely unusual, these people were deeply telepathic and had been reaching out to him from the moment he touched down. It was like walking through a crowd and having everyone brush their hand against him as he walked by, but he just blocked them out an focused on other things. Right now, he was distracting himself by taking out his tricorder and taking readings of the plants as they walked. Still, this one presence was insistent and difficult to ignore. It kept pressing at him and making his head throb. He lifted a hand to his temple, trying to will away the pain it was causing.

"Are you alright?" Zoro asked, looking at him cautiously.

Sanji hadn't realized it, but he had stopped moving forward. He shook himself, "I'm fine, these people are just a little overwhelming," he replied, trying to keep his voice neural and barely managing it.

Zoro gave him a suspicious look as they continued to walk. The garden was very beautiful, it had peahen hedges that rose up to twice Zoro's size. They were obviously clipped into shape, but they had little flowers on them as well. The flowers were small and back, reminding Zoro's of the old Halloween traditions held on earth. The grass was short and soft as well. Small bugs flutters through the air and filled the air with sound. A symphony of nature, guest starring Luffy as the giggly idiot.

Quite suddenly, there was misstep, Sanji stumbled. His mind was reeling at the sudden burst of pain that rippled through his head. It was like the barrier had been penetrated, letting in a flood of agony as the other consciousness swept in. Or like he had taken a big drink of something and it had gone down to his lungs, instead of his esophagus; it was like choking.

"Hey, what-" Zoro cut himself off as he watched Sanji's face go pale and he started to fall. The swordsman quickly reached out and stopped him from face planting into the floor and tried to figure out what was wrong with him.

The presence was overwhelming, Sanji desperately tried to shove it back, but it just kept pressing into him. It filled his head with a jumble of strange thoughts and emotions. Sanji was drowning, he could feel himself being shoved out of control by the other entity. This sparked a flair of primal fear, he didn't know what would happen if he got pushed out of control and he absolutely did not want to find out. The situation wasn't good, but he didn't have a way to push the entity out, he needed something to focus on, he need an anchor to give him the grounds to push back. He needed to know what was part of him and what was not because he couldn't tell anymore.

Zoro as desperately trying to figure out want the hell was going on. He had nearly given up on trying to help Sanji, when his non-responsive state worsened, and the blond's eyes rolled back and he started twitching. Zoro pressed down the communicator on his chest and called for back up. "Zoro to Luffy. Hey, we have a problem, the cook-" he was cut off when Sanji stretched out his hand and pressed it to the left side of his face, his fingers meeting the psi points and smashing their minds together with a force that made Zoro feel sick. The green haired man was swept up in the mass of emotion and thought that had suddenly taken residence in his mind. He had never been a part of any sort of telepathic meld, if that was what was happening. It was so strange. Was he still in his own mind? It was hard to tell with so much going on.

He could sense Sanji and something else. He wasn't sure how he could tell what either thing was, but somehow he just could. Sanji's presence seemed small next to the other thing. As soon as the contact with Zoro's mind was initiated, Sanji pressed his mind close to Zoro's and started to somehow push the thing back, like he was being used as a backboard to push off of. The thing fought back viciously, pulling up old memories that soon flashed by, and causing a good deal if head pains.

Zoro also started pushing at the thing, once he had figured out how to. He just had to think it and it would be done, but it was like trying to push smoke through a hole in the wall; it didn't make sense and it was extremely hard to do.

When the thing was forced out it left an emptiness behind it, allowing the two remaining minds to relax and flow into the comfortable space. This left only the presences of Sanji and Zoro together in a sea of nothingness. It felt very strange, things moved so quickly that Zoro couldn't understand what was happening. It felt there was too much pressure between them. He could feel Sanji's excitement over pushing the thing back, he echoed the feeling. He reached out toward Sanji's presence, for what he did not know; it just felt like the right thing to do. There was a flash of overwhelming heat and then the contact was abruptly separated as Sanji scrambled back.

XxxX

Consciousness came back like a heavy blanket tossed directly onto the face, Sanji came to very abruptly. He felt strange, his head was throbbing with a horrific amount of pain, and he felt oddly detached from his body. Distantly, he could hear the humming sounds of the med bay. He knew that particular sound a little too well.

Sanji made an effort to push himself up and succeeding in doing so. His head felt like it might explode, but his physical body was fine. He squinted at his surroundings, the light stinging his suddenly sensitive eyes. He was in the med bay back on the ship. Chopper was off to his side, leaning over Zoro, there was no sign of the others.

Upon seeing Sanji sit up, Chopper was sent into adorable worried doctor mode. "Sanji are you okay? What happened? Your brain chemistry is way off."

"I'm fine," Sanji assured the small doctor, "One of the people got into my brain, but it's okay now. I'm fine, everything's-" his breath caught in his throat, something wasn't right, everything wasn't fine.

Chopper was upon him in a second, "Sanji, what's wrong? Talk to me."

Sanji felt a wave of panic and apprehension wash over him, he bit down on his lip, and clenched his hair tightly, pulling slightly. Two very un-Vulcan like reactions to stress. The blond shook his head. "Bad, bad, bad. This is bad." His face showed panic and Choper's words refused to reach him, but after a moment a vulcan calm fell over him. Seconds later, Zoro began to stir.

Zoro awoke feeling like he was one hundred percent at attention, the sort of feeling he would get were he in the middle of a battle zone. His adrenalin was pumping and he was ready to pounce, but his head was filled with cotton. His eyes took a moment to focus as he heard panicky voices next to him. He sat up blearily but frantically eyeing the other occupants of the room.

He blinked, he could still feel Sanji's presence in his head, although much more distant than he had before. He could feel waves of panic radiating through the connection. As soon as he focused on the feeling that was not his, it was shut away from him, although the presence was still there. It was like putting down a curtain, but still seeing the movement behind it.

Zoro's eyes narrowed as he glared over at the blond. 'Want the fuck did you do?' he thought, he wasn't quite awake enough to make his tongue work. From the panicked felling before, he knew the blond must have done something very bad. Although, now he had a very vulcan calm about him. Fucking vulcans, they were always such assholes.

'It's not my fault' the thought was undeniably Sanji's, although Zoro heard it echo through his skull as if was directed to him. He wondered if this was like what people with schizophrenia felt like, hearing voices that aren't their own. It was unnerving and kind of terrifying.

"What the fuck did you do?!" Zoro asked, this time aloud, as he was suddenly aware that Chopper was staring at them in confusion.

"What's he talking about Sanji?" the doctor asked.

Sanji took a deep breath, retaining his calm exterior. "When my mind was attacked I could do nothing to fight back without something to push off of. The marimo just so happened to be there, so I instinctively mind melded with him to fight back. I may have... panicked and in my haste, gone a bit too far." His expression faltered slightly in guilt.

"And what exactly does that mean?" Zoro asked, he had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Well," Sanji drawled, "I would appear that I accidentally initiated a mating bond... a little bit." He cringed slightly as the words left his mouth.

"You did what?!" Zoro exclaimed in horror. This was the most horrifying thing that had happened to him in a very long time and it was ten times as horrifying because it was with Sanji. He didn't want to be forever connected to this idiot.

"It's not as bad as it sounds." Sanji held up his hands in defense. "But yeah, it kind of sucks."

"What do you mean, it's not as bad as it sounds? Because it sounds pretty fucking horrible," Zoro said, his voice rising with panic.

Chopper ignored him and asked a more pressing question, "How did this happen? You've mind melded with other people and nothing like this has happened." It was true, Sanji had preformed mind melds before in order to do things like communicate with aliens whose languages did not adapt well to the universal translator, or to seek out memories.

Sanji nodded, "Yeah, but mind melds are kind of dangerous and anything can go wrong. I probably reached out too strongly and made the connection without thinking to push back, and then it grew stronger as the other mind was pushed out. It's not totally my fault though, this only could have happened between two people with highly compatible minds," he finished awkwardly. It wasn't like he wanted this to happen. He had always dreamed of being bonded to a beautiful lady having many blond children, not bonded with Zoro doomed to forever be fighting. When he left vulcan he hadn't been bonded yet, even when many other children had been arranged to marry even before him. His parents kept him unbounded because they weren't sure that he could maintain no emotion while connected. They were afraid he might damage the other member of the bond.

"Have you forgotten who we are, spiral brow? There is no way our minds are compatible," Zoro argued.

Sanji looked annoyed and Zoro could feel the shift of emotions behind his mental shields, although he couldn't tell what they were. It was creepy. "I'm only telling you what I know, marimo, you can't argue with facts. Well, you can but that would be stupid. Physically, our minds fit together, that has nothing to do with how much we hate each other." They actually fit together a little too well, something that made Sanji feel very uneasy, it was not exactly comfortable to think about.

Zoro glared at him, but he didn't know enough on the topic of vulcan mind melds to make an argument. "So, what does a mating bond entail exactly? Because this sounds like some kinky alien bullshit."

Sanji's eyebrow twitched, "I'm just going to ignore your xenophobia and answer that. It's not as bad as it sounds. It just means that we have a strong mental connection, which is why you can feel my presence and before you could sense my emotion. There also appears to be a way of telepathic communication. From what I remember those are kind of rare? I think." His knowledge of his vulcan kin was not especially extensive, it wasn't exactly an open topic; Vulcans were always annoyingly private about everything.

Zoro groaned loudly, his irritation echoing through Sanji's head where there once would have been only limited feeling, "Great, so I have to deal with you constantly being in my head now? Shouldn't be a problem at all," he rolled his eyes, "So, how do we fix it?"

Sanji hesitated. "Well, I could try to break the bond myself."

"Would that be dangerous?" Chopper asked nervously, whenever it came to mind melds vulcans always seemed to be more confident in their abilities than they should be.

"Not it it's weak enough," Sanji reasoned, "If it's too strong we would have to get a vulcan elder to break it and I don't think Luffy wants to turn the ship around." Who knows how long it would take to wait up for them.

"Can you try to break it now?" Zoro asked, not wanting to spend anymore time this close with Sanji.

Sanji shrugged, "Sure, it's better to do it before it had settled in too much. We have to do it in my quarters though, I have to light the incense and meditate."

"Why do you need incense to go into my brain?" Zoro asked, making a face.

"Because it helps me focus, it's calming. Just shut up," Sanji snapped back.

"I want to monitor your condition, just in case," Chopper said worriedly as he ignored their bickering, mind melds could do all sorts of things when they weren't monitored. "And we should probably let the others know that you two are okay. I had them all leave while I was treating you guys.

Sanji smiled at the furry doctor, "Sure thing, but let's get this done first. Come on, marimo," the betazoid-vulcan said, standing and starting toward the door. They walked along the corridor into Sanji's room, it wasn't a long trip and they didn't see anyone in the hallway. Each step of the way, Sanji's head felt a little better, soothed by the new bond. He tried not to think about that so much, soon it would be gone and things would be normal again.

The atmosphere was a good deal hotter in Sanji's room and it smelled like strange spices, but it wasn't unpleasant; it felt more warm and comforting than overpowering. The three of them entered then room and Sanji pulled out two meditation mats, one across from the other. As he and Zoro sat down, Chopper took out a medical tricorder to make sure that their life signs stayed stable. Mind melds were often more trouble than they were worth, even when Vulcans insisted they were safe.

Chopper nodded his readiness to Sanji when he looked up and the blond turned his gaze to Zoro. "Ready?" he asked.

"What's going to happen?" Zoro was an outsider to Vulcan mind voodoo, as he like to call it.

"I'm going to mind meld with you and split the bond," Sanji explained without really explaining anything.

"Will it hurt?" If it did Zoro could take it, he was a big boy.

"Nah, it should be fine," Sanji assured him, although he had no real idea, he hasn't preformed too many mind melds, "Ready?"

"Ready," Zoe sighed, sounding resigned.

Sanji leaned in and lifted his right hand to place over Zoro's psi points. His index finger on the side of his forehead and middle and ring fringes trailing down to the pinky finger on his jaw, his thumb rested against the side of his nose. "My mind to your mind," Sanji said, his eyes sliding closed. Zoro closed his eyes as well, there was the strangest sensation, like him mind was an open door to let Sanji's inside. "Your thoughts to my thoughts," the second line was more a mental thought than a physical recitation. Zoro could feel his prescience again, so close. Having two minds together was about as intimate as things could get and it was very weird to feel so close with Sanji of all people.

Sanji hesitated for a second before seeking out the bond, it was like he was shifting through his mind. Less like he was reading through files, more like the was looking for a box labeled 'bond'. Zoro wasn't exactly sure of what he was supposed to do when suddenly he got the impression from Sanji that he should just stay out of the way while the he looked. Zoro made sure to exaggerate his irritation, just to be a bastard.

When Sanji found the link between them he was surprised by what he saw, Zoro could feel it. It wasn't a physical thing, but it felt like a rope was connecting them. Sanji's side was a deep ocean blue and Zoro's was green like his hair. The weapons specialist felt a trickle of amusement when Sanji first saw it, although that was quick to be shielded away again.

The two sides of the bond started thicker toward the base and twined together thinner in the middle. The link was stronger than Sanji would have through. He watched it for a moment before attempting to sever it. It was like using kiddie scissors to cut industrial strength rope; impossible. Sanji felt a wash of panic when he touched the bond and it only knotted itself together even more. He tried to snap it, but it only kept growing. 'What the fuck-'

And suddenly they were back in the room with Chopper, who looked concerned. Sanji's hand immediately dropped from Zoro's face to look at the doctor.

"Are you two okay?" Chopper said worriedly.

Sanji made an unhappy noise, he was projecting an uncomfortable feeling,  
so far as Zoro could tell. That could mean a lot of things.

"We're fine," Zoro answered when it seemed Sanji wouldn't.

"Why did you pull us out?" Sanji asked.

"Your vitals we're starting to fluctuate rather dangerously. I was afraid you might give yourself a stroke or go into cardiac arrest, I don't know much about mind melds. I wish the Vulcans would be more open about this sort of thing," Chopper said, frown deepening.

"I was trying to cut the bond, but I couldn't do it," Sanji breathed, half shocked and half distressed.

"So, what now, we're stuck like this?" Zoro demanded.

"I guess so," Sanji groaned, "Aw fuck, that reminds me, we are technically engaged by vulcan standards. Well, not exactly. It's more than a betrothal but less than a marriage."

Zoro let out a dry laugh, "Great, just fucking great. Are we going to have to go through some bullshit marriage ritual now?"

"I really hope it doesn't last that long," Sanji grimaced, "I'm not going to marry you."

"And I'm definitely not going to marry you."

"Is there anything more we can do?" Chopper asked.

"Not unless we want to turn around and pay the vulcan high council a visit, I'm sure they'd love to see me again," Sanji said sarcastically, then he seemed to realize something, "I bet they would try to fucking arrest me, the fucking pricks."

"Why," Chopper asked.

Sanji pulled at his hair in his agitation, "Because I initiated a mating bond without the permission of the other person, that is one of the worst crimes in vulcan law."

"You mind raped me, didn't you?"  
Zoro jabbed a finger at him accusingly.

Sanji glared at him menacingly, "No, that is something different. What I did is more akin to molesting your mind and holding it captive. I mean, that's pretty horrible but at least I'm respecting your boundaries."

"You're a monster," Zoro shook his head mockingly.

"Shut up, I know." Sanji flipped him off.

"Fucking hell, I'm going to be stuck with you in my head forever. This is going to be so annoying."

"You're telling me," Sanji grumbled, "Aw, we're going to have to tell everyone about all of this," Sanji whined.

Fantastic. This wasn't going to be at all uncomfortable.

"We should probably just get that out of the way now," Zoro sighed in resignation.

"Ugh, but I don't want to."

"Come on," Zoro stood and headed toward the exit, the other two following behind him.

They made the trip to the bridge, where they knew Luffy would be along with everyone else. When the door slid open, all faces turned their way. Zoro grimaced, but Sanji's face was blank and his feelings were blocked. When Zoro subconsciously sought after Sanji's reaction he got the impression of being brushed aside by the half Betazoid. It was so weird, he was never going to get used to it.

"Are you guys okay?" asked Luffy.

"Fine," grumbled Sanji, "What happened with the dilithium?"

"They felt so bad that they gave it to us for half of its worth," Nami grinned wildly.

"They hope that you will forgive them and not hold all of their kind to the actions of only one," Robin said lowly, "They seemed genuinely distressed at your harm." She spoke more to Sanji than to Zoro.

The Empath nodded, "I won't hold any grudges against them," he took a deep breath, "but there is something you should know."

"What is it?" Luffy wondered, looking slightly concerned at Sanji's serious tone.

"When I was attacked, I mind melded with Zoro accidentally set up a bond that linked our minds together," he said hurriedly.

"A mating bond?" Robin smirked as if she found the idea incredibly amusing but was fighting hard to maintain her composure.

Sanji nodded reluctantly, making a horrible face, "Yes, although I'd prefer not to call it that. When you say it like that it sounds too sexual."

"So, what does that mean then?" Nami leaned back from the helm seat, craning her neck to get at better look at the two of them.

"It means their brains are connected, that's the vulcan equivalent of being engaged," Chopper explained.

"Probably closer to married than engaged, the bond is too strong to break," Sanji said uncomfortably, shifting from one foot to the other.

"Will this interfere with your duties?" Luffy asked, that was the only thing that really mattered after all.

"No, sir," Sanji said, "We will deal with this as quietly as possible."

A huge smile broke out across Luffy's face, "Then congratulations."

"It's not an actual engagement," Sanji scowled, but he doubted that anyone would listen to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to rush this because it was irritating me, there are probably a lot of errors but blah.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that Betazoids can actually read Romulans, but Robin's just so mysterious that making her readable would be no fun. They can't read ferengi though.
> 
> Star Trek transporters are kind of bullshit when you spend way too much time thinking about it. I decided to set up my own rules of how transport works (it's not all that different).
> 
> Also, I kind of made up psi point finger placement but it doesn't really matter because Spock would just grab people's faces sometimes.
> 
> Poor boys, sharing the same head space sounds rough *evil grin*
> 
> Thanks.


	3. Space Travel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Figuring stuff out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I get lost while I was gone.   
> I traveled space for much too long,  
> But there's a planet I have found  
> And you are far away from now.
> 
> -"Space Travel" Yellowcard

Zoro lay in bed that night, staring up at the ceiling. Sanji wasn't asleep yet, he could feel it. Sanji's room was right next to his, it would have probably bothered him if the walls weren't sound proof but they were so there was no need to fuss. 

Sanji's mind was blocked off at the moment and that fact only made Zoro's want to poke at it all the more. Like running your tongue over a spot where you've just lost a tooth and the gap feels strange and foreign. You can't help touching it. 

'Stop doing that,' Sanji scolded him, feeling the not so subtle prodding at his mental shields. 

'Why? It's not like I'm trying to break into your mind.' It wasn't very likely that he could penetrate those shields, having no experience with that sort of mind infiltration. 

'It's like having a cat brushing against your legs, it's weird.' And yet oddly soothing, with was kind of weird in and of itself. 

'How do you do that?' Zoro wondered, poking with more force at the shields. 

'Block my mind? Lots of practice. I was shit at it when I started. In vulcans it's partially a physical thing, but I think it can work in humans.' The vulcan species had a special part of the mind designated to those sort of tasks, which was partially way they were so good at emotional suppression. 

'But how do you do it?'

'It's like keeping part of your brain on constant meditation. You meditate, you'd probably be good at it. Although, I'm not sure you're capable of doing more than one thing at a time.'

'Shut up. Can you teach me?' Zoro hated to ask, but he didn't what his emotions constantly being read by the cook, not that he couldn't before but this felt too much. He knew that Sanji had trouble reading him under normal circumstances and he'd rather keep it that way. 

Thankfully, Sanji seemed to agree to his proposal. 'Yeah, that's probably a good idea. We can start on that tomorrow.'

'Agreed.' His mood lifted slightly and he sensed a momentary flicker of amusement on Sanji's end. 

'Okay, now leave me alone and let me sleep,' Sanji let his tiredness seep past his mental shield for effect. 

'No way, I'm going to keep you up all night just to be annoying. I have that power now,' Zoro's mind echoed a ring of smug satisfaction. 

'And I have this power,' Sanji directed his sleepiness directly at Zoro, who suddenly began to feel very tired. 

'No, damn you.' Zoro thought as he was overwhelmed by the urge to sleep. He fought to stay awake for a few moments, but was quickly overcome. 

His dreams were very strange, usually Zoro didn't remember his dreams at all, but now his dreams were vivid and tinged in the blue of Sanji's mind. 

Great, they couldn't even get away from each other while they slept. Hopefully, neither of them would dream about something weird. That night the dream only seemed to be a strange little adventure through a desert that looked suspiciously like vulcan, but with snakes slithering all over the ground, then they entered a cave into a pastry shop to buy some self sealing stem bolts. It wasn't a scary dream, it was just kind of weird. 

That morning, Sanji got up at his usual time in order to make breakfast. On his way down to the kitchen, he brushed against Zoro's sleeping mind. Enough to feel it, but not enough to wake him. Their dreams had been cloudy but, the connection still showed. This was going to be so annoying. Some vulcans found peace in a bond mate, Sanji only seemed to find another reason to be annoyed. But then he never was very good at being a vulcan after all. He took a deep breath and gatherer some ingredients from the little garden he had in a room beside the kitchen so he could grow fresh foods, and some from the replicator, though it pained him. Unfortunately, they couldn't carry live animals on the ship with them and dead animals took up a lot of space in the freezer. Well, they usually did have a stock of meat in their big freezer but they had run out, thanks to Luffy, so replicated meats would have to do. 

As Sanji started preparing breakfast, he was swept up in a soothing practice that helped to calm the irritation at the back of his head, resonating around the bond. 

Why of all people did he have to be bonded to that idiot, he couldn't this of anyone worse to be stuck with. Well, he could but Zoro was probably the worst person to be bonded with on a list of people he could sometimes tolerate. He was just so... Zoro. It was infuriating. 

Time passed and Zoro wasn't awake yet. If he wanted to make it on time for his meal he would wake up in the next five minutes, or else Sanji would wake him up. Well, at least that was a plus, he could disrupt Zoro's sleep schedule. When the marimo did not wake within the designated time frame, Sanji gave him a mental shove. Probably the equivalent of punching him the shoulder. It wasn't much, but Zoro was wide awake in an instant. 

'Rise and shine,' Sanji snickered. 

'Fuck, don't do that!' His emotions read as sleepy, but still angry. 

'Then get up on time, idiot, or I'll do it again.'

'You've ruined my life,' Zoro complained. 

'By making you get up? I think you're being a little over dramatic.'

'You know that I meant.'

'I know, and I'm sorry, but there's noting I can do to fix it until I can find some super old vulcan master.'

'I never thought I'd be so excited to find an old vulcan master.'

'Me either.'

Zoro arrived to breakfast on time, although he wasn't happy about it. He was very sulky about the whole thing. 

"How's life being engaged?" Nami asked Zoro, seeing the irritated look on his face. 

"Don't ever do it, it's fucking annoying as hell," Zoro droned, slumping in his seat. 

"Hey, you don't even have to deal with all my emotions, I don't see why you're complaining so much," Sanji huffed, dealing with other people's emotions was so much work sometimes. 

"Because you're in my head, that's why."

"It's not my fault," he paused, "Well, maybe it is but still."

"What does it feel like?" Chopper asked curiously, as he tucked into his syrup drown pancakes. 

Zoro thought about it for a second, feeling out toward the bond. As he did so Sanji shrunk away from him. "It feels like there's a tube between our brains and he can reach out and touch mine, but his is behind a curtain."

"That's about right," Sanji agreed, "but I get the full blast of the moss head's emotions, which makes him very uneasy." Sanji pressed against the bond and then it was Zoro's turn to cringe back. 

"That's because it's weird," Zoro said, making a horrible face. 

"It's not like I couldn't read it before if it tried, now it's just stronger," Sanji shrugged. 

"If I had a brain connection with Sanji I would always tell him to make me meat," Luffy grinned. 

"That actually makes me grateful that I'm connected to this loser and not you," Sanji scowled. 

"That's right, Sanji, you should always appreciate your space husband," Nami nodded wisely. 

"Thank you, Nami," Sanji gushe, but then Zoro pushed him out of his chair. 

"Listen to her words, dumbass," Zoro spat, "She just called us space husbands. What the fuck does that even mean? I mean, I know what you're trying to say, but why did you feel the need to put the word space in front of it?"

"It just seemed fitting," Nami shrugged, "Usopp said it first," she pointed to the long nosed klingon. 

"Oh yeah?" Zoro asked through gritted teeth, "And when did he say that?"

Usopp cowered back in fear, "I- uh, I mean- I-" he stuttered. 

"Last night, on watch," Nami said, throwing Usopp under the metaphorical bus. 

"You guys were gossiping about us," Sanji pouted. 

"How could we not? It's so scandalous," Robin smiled. 

Sanji's head thumped onto the table with the loud thump next to his plate. 

"Sanji, you shouldn't do that," Chopper told him. 

"I'm sorry, Chopper," Sanji said, not picking up his head. 

The rest of breakfast felt terribly long and was filled with much teasing at the two newly bonded individuals expense. Sanji was grateful when it came to an end. After he was done cleaning up the remains of breakfast, Sanji headed off toward the little science lab they had to do some tests on a soil sample they had taken from a Y class planet a few weeks back that he hadn't had a chance to look at. The tests were boring and rather mundane, Sanji felt his mind wander out toward the bond. 

'What are you doing?' he questioned to Zoro. He seemed content, whatever he was doing. 

'Checking the quality of our phasers,' came Zoro's reply after the initial shock of being disturbed. 

'So, you're shooting things?'

'Yes.'

'That figures.'

'Leave me alone, I'm trying to shoot things.'

'But I'm kind of bored and I want to be distracted.'

'Distract yourself, do you know how annoying you are?'

'No, I find myself rather enjoyable sometimes.'

'Well, sometimes I want to punch you in the face.'

'Come down here and try it. Seriously, I'm really bored; fight me.'

'Maybe I will, I really want to punch you in the face.'

'Fucking do it then. When I finish up this stuff, I'm coming for you, marimo.'

'I'll be waiting here, cook, phaser in hand," Zoro promised. 

When Sanji finished up his soil samples he marched down to the weapons storage room, entering without a second thought. The storage room was connected to the training room, so they could fight freely in there. It would be interesting to see what it was like with a more intense mental connection, at least on Sanji part. For Zoro any mental connection took some getting used to. 

Sanji couldn't help but feel a little excited about fighting. For a half-vulcan he was very violent, apparently he had missed out on the typical vulcan peace loving side of things and had hitched himself to klingon ideals. He knew how to nerve pinch though. He hated to do it because it was super lame in a fight. All he had to do was reach over and pinch the skin along he side of the neck around where the shoulder met and they would drop to the ground. Not exactly the same as kicking the shit out of someone, but it was a useful back up. 

Zoro was already in the training room when Sanji arrived, two swords in his hands. While he had all manner of weapons at his disposal and of his mastery, his katanas where his favorite method of cutting things to pieces. They were specially forged to not be affected by disrupters blasts or phaser fire. 

"You ready for this, marimo?" the science officer asked out loud. 

"Come at me, noodle legs," Zoro smirked, anticipation resonating from his side of the bond. 

And he did, kick after kick, swing after swing, they danced. Normally, when they fought all Sanji could feel from Zoro was determination and focus, now he felt that little tingle of enjoyment underneath. It was incredibly amusing. 

"I never knew you liked fighting with me so much, moss head," Sanji teased, dodging a sword as it whizzed past the pointed tip of his right ear. 

"I do not," Zoro's objected. 

"You can't hide from me, kelp for brains, I can probe all of your brain."

"I don't like this, it isn't fair. Tell me how to block my brain off."

"Maybe I don't want to," Sanji grinned impishly. 

"Then I believe I could have you arrested by the Vulcan council for molesting me and not even letting me defend myself," Zoro said smoothly. 

Sanji sighed, "Fine, maybe I think this is funny but I will teach you anyway. It's almost time for me to make lunch, so let's finish this up, I'll make lunch and after that you can come down to my quarters."

"Good," Zoro nodded, "I'll just quickly kick your ass then."

It was hard to say who's won their little squabble, Zoro smacked his head on the floor hard enough to be concussed and Sanji broke two ribs. They were patched up with a bit of self done medical attention. Advanced technology was an amazing thing. Chopper would never need to know. 

Sanji went off to cook lunch. Sanji had to deliver lunch to each person because the day was usually filled with problems to be solved and it was very difficult to schedule a time for lunch, which made Sanji a little sad but it was what it was. 

Sanji made sure to deliver Zoro's first so he would be done eating by the time Sanji was done delivering the meals. The science officer then retuned to his quarters and waited until Zoro had entered Sanji's room for the second time in as many days. It was just as warm and spicy as hit had been the last time. Sanji rolled out his matts and lit his incense.

"Okay," Sanji started, sitting cross legged on one of the matts and gesturing that Zoro should do the same, "So, this is a little different than typical meditation. You have to sort through your mind and build up a figurative defense. I always imagine that I'm building up a brick wall to shield me, but I have to do like a million layers." It was very difficult to explain bust Sanji did his best. 

"That's it?" Zoro imagined that it would had been more complicated than that, "Just build a wall?" It sounded simple enough. 

"And focus."

"That sounds easy."

"It's harder than you'd think." 

"Bring it on."

Sanji rolled his eyes as Zoro took his meditative position, calming his breathing and evening out his perception. His mind was an empty plain. It was difficult while thinking of nothing to imagine building a wall, but Zoro tried all the same. Strangely enough, when he really focused on blocking his mind off he felt like he was doing something, but it seemed that every time he tried to build up the defense, it would crumble away to nothing; it was immensely frustrating. Eventually, it got to be too much and Zoro opened his eyes. Sanji was sitting in a chair on the far side of his room, scrolling through something on his PADD. He looked up when Zoro's eyes fell on him. 

"Harder than you thought?" he asked with a half smile. 

"It's super frustrating," Zoro agreed. 

"Practice, maybe it will get better," Sanji shrugged, "I don't know how it's supposed to work with humans."

"Dammit," Zoro swore, "Why can't anything be easy?"

It became a habit of Zoro's to practice at securing the safety of his brain in any spare time he could find, but he never seemed to make any progress. Maybe it wasn't supposed to work in humans, or else, maybe he was just really terrible at it. 

Zoro was sitting in Sanji's quarters, where he usually practiced, when Sanji unexpectedly spoke up. 

"So, I had an idea," Sanji said hesitantly, "I could try to show you what it's like to build a mental defense."

"That sounds way more simple than what I've been doing," Zoro said, slightly put off, "Why didn't you just do that before?"

The blond grimaced, "Because it means I'll be exposing you to more of my brain." He looked as if he was dreading that idea, but Zoro had to keep his brain on constant exposure, so he wasn't all that sympathetic. 

"Sounds like a fair trade to me," Zoro scoffed at Sanji's selfishness, making Sanji feel defensive. 

"Shut up, I'll have to mind meld with you."

Zoro grimaced, not looking forward to having his brain all full of Sanji. "Ugh, this is going to be weird, isn't it?"

"Probably," Sanji breathed in resignation. 

"Should we have Chopper monitor us?" The doctor had made this thing seem dangerous. 

"Nah, I'll have the computer check our vitals, I'm sure it'll be fine." There was that vulcan mind meld overconfidence. 

They took their seats and Sanji put his fingers to Zoro's psi points, reciting the words. And then their brains were together in the same place. It felt different than it did the first time or the second, this time Sanji held back. The contact was slow and more respectful of boundaries. His emotions were still hidden behind a veil. 

Sanji gave him a mental nudge, an impression that he should relax and meditate, but it was easer said than done with another person there. Zoro took a deep breath and focused on clearing his mind, although he was mindful of Sanji's presence on some level. 

When he was near thoughtlessness, Sanji called his attention when he started lowering his barriers. He did not lower all of them, just the outer shell, but the difference was still detectable. Zoro could feel the swirling emotions beneath the thinner shield, they churned like an angry sea. It just made him want to pop that bubble and see what would happen. Sanji didn't seem to like that idea, because he called Zoro back to attention like he was snapping his fingers in front of his face. 

Sanji brought him close, guiding him, showing him what he could do. He was right, it was like building up a brick wall. When Sanji did it he constructed the walls quickly and skillfully, when Zoro's did it the wall tumbled over and turned to sand. They tried at it for a long while until Zoro got too frustrated to proceed. Then Sanji cut the contact. 

They were back in the too warm room, about an hour had passed, probably more. 

"Well, that was better than nothing," Sanji sighed, running a hand through his blond hair. His fingers were shaking. 

Zoro grabbed his arm, ignoring the way the blond jumped at the contact. vulcans did not like people touching them; it was a touch telepath thing but it wasn't like the two of them could get all that much closer. "You're shaking," he pointed out. 

Sanji looked at his hand in surprise, "So I am, it's probably from the mind meld, I've never done it for so long with someone with a deep connection, nor have I ever tried to teach them how to build mental shields."

"Do you think you should see Chopper?"

"Nah, I'm sure it's fine. Don't worry about it."

"I wasn't worried. I'd be glad if you died, then I could get you out of my head."

"If one of us died it would be painful for the other, it would be like cutting off a limb." Under some special circumstances people even went insane, but that didn't usually happen. 

"Great, just one more thing to look forward to," Zoro huffed, walking out the door. 

After that Sanji and Zoro spent a lot more time in each other's heads. Zoro was desperate to learn how to shut Sanji out, it was just so hard. Sanji had help him most of the time to start with. He was becoming strangely familiar with his presence and that was a little scary. But just because they spent more time together didn't mean they fought any less, they still fought like they always did, but they felt somehow closer. 

XxxX

It had been a lazy day on the ship, no one was doing much. Nami, Sanji, and Usopp were watching the bridge. Sanji was kicking back at his post and the other two were in a similar state when Nami detected a ship within visual range. 

"Sanji to Luffy. Hey, we have a ship within visual range, what do you want to do?" Sanji asked lazily, there was no need to rush; the ship didn't appear to be moving. 

"Hang on, I'll be right there," Luffy said. He appeared a minute later, rushing into the room. "I called everyone else. Put the ship on screen."

Nami pulled the image up into the screen. It looked like a romulan warbird, actually, that's what it was. They all gaped at it for a moment as the others filed in. 

"I thought we were the furthest out, right now" Luffy pouted, not happy that the romulans were further out in space than them. 

"We are," Robin said, her eyes were narrowed and she didn't look happy with what she was seeing. 

"You don't know of any romulan missions out this far?" Nami asked. 

"None," Robin replied, unhappily. 

"Well," Sanji said, glancing down at the ship's reading, "Obviously, they're decloaked, which is weird, but there are only ten life signs onboard and none of them are moving."

"The ship's not moving either," Nami observed, "What's their engine status?"

"Everything looks fine, they're just sitting there," Sanji shrugged. 

"I don't like this," Zoro grumbled, this sounded eerily like some sort of trap. Such things were know to happen out in deep space. 

"Let's go see what they're doing," Luffy said, jabbing his finger forward for effect. 

"Aye, captain," Nami replied as she inserted the command. As they neared the romulan ship, nothing seemed out of place, except the lack of activity. They were still reading life signs, but nothing was moving. 

"Robin, Zoro, and Sanji, you're with me," Luffy said, gesturing toward the door, "We're going going to see what's up with them. Their shields are down, right?"

"Yep," Nami confirmed. 

"Great, let's do this," Luffy grinned. 

One transporter trip later and the four of them were on the mysterious ship. It was cold, but not in a life support failure kind of cold. It was also very quiet, thus created an eerie sort of atmosphere.

"Robin, take us to the bridge," Luffy hissed. He wasn't sure if they should be whispering or not. It felt too quiet to talk loudly. 

The hallways echoed with their every step. Sanji kept his eyes glued to his tricorder, he could see that they were approaching a romulan life sign. When they turned the corner there was no one immediately visible. Sanji looked around the room, there was defiantly someone there but where? He caught sight of something over in the shadows, near the door they had come through, all tucked away into a corner. 

He approached the thing, his friends stopping to watch him, Robin retrieved a light and shined it on Sanji's point of interest. 

It was a romulan, he appeared to be stuck to the wall by some sort of web like mucus. The stuff was an unappealing gray in color and looked wet. Sanji wrinkled his nose in disgust. He looked down at his tricorder readings. Whatever it was it was organic in nature and contained nothing especially harmful. All the same he didn't really want to go poking it with his bare hands. 

"What the fuck is that?" Zoro asked, breaking the silence. 

"I don't know," Sanji said, bringing out his phaser. He made sure it was off before poking at the face of the apparently unconscious romulan. The romulan woman made no move no matter how much he poked. 

"Is he dead?" Luffy asked. 

"No, his life signs look normal," Sanji said, moving to poke at the web instead. The stuff squished like wet cotton, there was something really disgusting about it. Still the romulan made no move, so Sanji went to the edge of the stuff and tried peeling it off with the tip of his phaser. Instead of just the web coming away, so did a slick layer of skin. The romulan finally moved, screeching in pain and straining against the web. 

It startled Sanji enough to stumble back into Luffy, who had been trying to look over his shoulder. After a moment of screaming the man settled back into his former state. 

"Well," Robin said, startled, "That was odd."

"I think that stuff bonded itself to the top layer of his skin. I don't know if we can move him," Sanji grimaced, wondering what could have initiated such a reaction. Clearly not anything he had read in his scan. 

"Let's keep going," Zoro said. The romulan's outburst had startled him as well as Sanji, the mental wall between them had faltered slightly letting an unsettled feeling creep through. Zoro settled himself before Sanji did, giving him a paranoid, out of balance feeling. Not wanting to deal with that, Zoro pressed a warm feeling through the bond, which calmed down Sanji alarmingly fast. They didn't say anything, merely pressed on. 

All the other romulans on the seemed to be in the same state. On the bridge Robin pulled up the communications records. 

"Oh dear," she said softly. 

"What is it?" Luffy asked, looking down at the records even though they were written in romulan, a language that he could not read. 

"This ship worked directly for the romulan high command," she said as her hand flew over the console. 

"So were they like the super secret spy guys?" Sanji guessed. 

"That is one term for them, yes."

"Why would they be out so far?" Luffy enquired. 

"Most likely, to make friends in the local species before the federation." Robin pulled up the records and quickly sorted through the information. Nobody commented on how she would have known all the codes for accessing top secret romulan files, she was most defiantly a top rank romulan spy. "There isn't any record of anything strange up to now," she sighed in disappointment.

"Well, if there's nothing in here, let's go explore the rest of the ship," Luffy said. 

The rest of the group agreed to the notion and Spilt up to search for anything suspicious. The ship was not large, so it would not take much time. 

Everything looked relatively normal, until Sanji opened one of the rooms and found it filled with the web substance. He cautiously stepped forward. He caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye although he was sure there were no life signs in the room. 

He turned to see a flash of blue before he was pinned to the wall outside the quarters by a sheet of web. He looked down at the stuff covering him. It felt gross and it tingled slightly, it was kind of painful. Panicking, he reached out toward Zoro, 'Marimo, I have a problem.'

'What? Why don't you use your communicator?' 

'I can't reach it, I'm stuck to the wall,'

'Hang on, I'll be right there. Did you see what did it.'

"I saw something blue, but I wasn't getting any life signs. It hasn't left the room, whatever it is.'

Moments later Zoro was rushing down the hall toward him. He whipped out one of his katanas and sliced open Sanji's cocoon. It felt like pealing off a bandaid and tore off a good bit of skin came off with it, his shirt had to come off, and Zoro had to cut off the front of his pants. So he was standing there in a tank top and his underwear. Very dignified. 

They called for Robin and Luffy who were there within moments. 

"What happened?" Luffy asked, taking in the bleeding, half naked Sanji. 

"I got webbed," Sanji frowned. 

"Is the thing still in there?"

"Uh, I guess it should be. I'm not getting any life signs though."

"We have to go in after it."

"We'll use this as a shield," Zoro held up the glob of clothes and web by the clothing part. 

"I think I'll go get an actual riot shield from the weapons bay," Robin said, turning on her heals. 

A few minutes later, riot shield protecting them, the group opened the cabin doors and stepped inside the room. 

He cabin was absolutely covered in the web. Even so, it was easy to spot the other being standing toward the back of the room in the shadows. It leaped forward, casting a spray of all over them. Luckily, they did have their riot shield to protect them. Once the spray had subsided, Luffy reached around the shield and Luffy shot the thing, phaser set to stun. 

The thing dropped to the ground with a thud. They peaked around the riot shield. It looked to be a woman. Her skin was translucent, making all of her inner workings visible, and her hair was blue, but she also appeared to have a soft layer of feathers flecked into her hair.

"Luffy, you shouldn't have shot her," Sanji complained. 

"What the fuck else was he going to do?" Zoro asked, irritably. Sanji didn't have an answer for that. "What should we do with her now?" Zoro wondered. 

"I suggest we take her to the brig for our protection, until she wakes up," Robin suggested. 

"Can we touch her?" Sanji asked, "I'm still not getting any readings from her."

Zoro handed the shield to Luffy and scooped up the alien woman. She was cold to the touch. "It's like carrying a bag of ice," Zoro scrunched up his nose in distaste. 

Robin guided them along to the holding cells and Zoro placed the woman inside. It didn't take very long for her to wake up, her kind must have a high tolerance for phaser blasts. That was probably a good thing to know. 

The woman blinked herself awake slowly. As soon as she was aware, she was panicking. She stared at therm through the force field anxiously. 

"Hi, I'm Luffy," Luffy greeter her, "What are you?"

"I don't belong here," the woman said tremulously. 

"And where do you belong?" Robin enquired. 

"In a different plain," she replied, "I'm not in alignment here."

"That must be why I'm not getting a reading on her. If she only half here she must be throwing off the scan," Sanji said thoughtfully. 

"What's your name?" the captain asked. 

"Vivi," the alien replied. 

"Well, Vivi, if you want we can help you back to where you belong," he grinned. 

Vivi looked taken aback, "But I attacked you."

"Self defense," Luffy shrugged, "Sanji is there anyway we can push her back into her field of existence?"

"Um," Sanji paused to think, "Well, I would say that our best bet is to try the transporter. If we can mess up the frequency to the amount of her out of focus, then maybe we can beam her back to her dimension."

"But how do we get a reading?" Zoro asked, staring at the blue haired woman. 

"Maybe it'll show up if we take a blood sample," Robin said, she retrieved a hypospray form a nearby Cabinet. Luffy shut down the force field as she approached it. Vivi looked nervous, but held out her arm for the sample all the same. 

Robin hummed as she looked at the device in her hands. "Well, I got something. We should send this back to the ship and tell Usopp to reconfigure the transporter to follow this signature."

"Luffy to Usopp, hey, Robin's going to beam over with something you need to look at."

"Got it," came Usopp's reply, "One to beam over." Moments later, Robin dissolved into a flutter if molecules and disappears. 

"So, how did you get here?" Luffy asked Vivi, who had come to stand outside of the transporter. 

"The people on this ship were doing some strange experiments," Vivi told him, "It displaced me from my existence. I've been here for three days," she said sadly. 

"Don't worry," Luffy said cheerily, "We'll have you back in a few minutes like nothing ever happened."

"I am very grateful," Vivi smiled brilliantly, sending Sanji into a swooning frenzy. 

"Captain, we're ready with the signature, but we don't have anything to lock onto," came Usopp's voice over the communicator. 

"Dammit," Sanji swore softly, "Hey, send over a box that locks on the inside. We can seal her in that and when she's sent over she can open it back up." The transporter should carry her over if she was sealed in. 

A box as Sanji described was soon replicated and beamed over. Vivi didn't look to happy about getting inside it though.

"You'll be fine," Luffy assured, as the woman stepped into the box. 

"I hope you are correct," she said, "Thank you for your help."

"Don't mention it, you're cool and I always help cool people," Luffy laughed. 

Vivi shut and sealed the box from the inside. 

"Alright, Usopp, send her away."

"Aye, captain," the box shimmered and Vivi disappeared along with 

"Did it work," Zoro asked."

"It should have, but there's no way to know for sure," Usopp told him. 

"Well, let's hope it did. Usopp, reconfigure the transporter and beam us back onboard, this place is boring now."

Later that night, Sanji was laying away, thinking about Vivi. His skin had been mended but the web had a sickening after effect that still plagued him. All the same, he hoped that she made it home okay. 

'I'm sure she's fine, cook,' came Zoro's inner voice. 

'What do you know?'

'Absolutely nothing, but I have a feeling.'

'Whatever, I have a feeling that you're an idiot.' The attempt at argument was weak but Sanji tried to evoke a response anyway. 

Zoro did not rise to the bate, 'Just go to sleep, love cook.'

'Fine, goodnight, marimo.'

'Night, you green blooded hobgoblin.'

And they fell asleep with a warm feeling pooled in the bond between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mm, mind melds :)
> 
> Hahaha, I keep forgetting that I can call Sanji by doctor McCoy terms. God damn, pointy eared hobgoblins. 
> 
> I always like to add Vivi in because she's kind of awesome. 
> 
> Thanks.


	4. Tainted Love

Sometimes I feel I've got to  
Run away, I've got to  
Get away from the pain you drive into the heart of me  
The love we share  
Seems to go nowhere  
And I've lost my light  
For I toss and turn, I can't sleep at night

-"Tained Love" Soft Cell

XxxX

Zoro was actually starting to get good at building mental shields. He was currently in Sanji's quarters having just built up a mental bond with enough skill to hold off a fair share of emotion should he choose. Sanji let a bit of encouragement leak from under his shields before he ended the contact.

Zoro smirked, opening his eyes to look at the half-betazoid in front of him, "I am the best."

"Whatever," Sanji snorted, although he had a small smile on his face.

"I'm the best and you know it. I could feel it." He really couldn't feel it but whatever.

"You only feel what I want you to feel," Sanji said with a flip of his hair.

Zoro frowned at that. It was true and even that little bit of emotion was distracting at times. He could only imagine what it was like to feel more than that. "What's it like to feel everyone's emotions all the time, I can't even really feel yours all the time and it's still distracting," Zoro said, voicing his thoughts.

"Do you really want to know?" Sanji raised an eyebrow.

Zoro's nodded confidently.

Sanji considered saying no but decided against it. "If you say so, but I guarantee that it's going to give you a headache," he didn't seem to bothered by that, judging my the amusement in his voice.

"Bring it on," Zoro smirked.

Sanji lifted his hand back to Zoro's psi points and brought their minds together as he usually did. Instead of drawing them farther into Zoro's mind, however, they went over to Sanji's side of things. As they neared the mental shields Sanji broke down the barriers and let the feeling beyond leak out.

Mind melds, being very awkwardly intimate, required an equally awkward and intimate simile. Before the mind melding had been like standing way way too far into someone's personal space. When Sanji took down some of his barriers it was like leaning in for a kiss and being less a centimeter apart, so close. When they were down it was like actually having that lip on lip contact, but not in a sexual way, more in a intimate and intense way.

He felt Sanji hesitant at first but he was warm. It wasn't the first time he had felt that unfiltered presence, but before he had only been looking to push an invading force back, now he was just existing and accepting Zoro into his mind space. Sanji felt slightly nervous for some reason, Zoro could sense it. The way he felt things was different than the way that Zoro did. He felt them in a much deeper and more impulsive way, which was why he needed his vulcan teachings or he'd just go on a rampage. Then again, Zoro wasn't know for being overly emotional so maybe this was what a normal emotional range felt like.

They just stayed that way for a while, Zoro feeling out Sanji's mind. It felt foreign, but also strangely familiar. The feeling it gave him was one more akin to that warm and comfortable feeling of being completely safe and at home. It was intriguing. Distantly, Sanji was aware of the bond between them growing larger and more intertwined, or maybe was it Zoro who was aware of that. It was hard to tell they were so close, neither of them seemed to mind. There were more interesting things to focus on. The naked contact was far too distracting.

'Are you sure you want to know what it's like to feel everyone?' Sanji pressed more gently than Zoro would have expected from him.

Zoro hesitated for a moment, it was slightly overwhelming feeling only one person's unfiltered emotions, let alone the whole crew's. Sanji assured him that the feeling wouldn't be nearly as intense as this was. So, Zoro made up his mind, he had said he wanted to know what it was like and he was going to find out no matter how hard it made his head hurt.

Sanji, sensing his decision, let the last of his barriers fall, letting in a flood of feelings. They came crashing in like a tsunami, brutal and strong. It was intensely overwhelming at first, but then Sanji called back his attention and the waves seemed to settle slightly. He could feel Luffy the strongest, the captain was very happy, a mood echoed by Brook and Usopp and originating in the same general area, so presumably they were all together. Chopper was feeling calm and focused in the direction of the medical bay along with Franky, who must have hurt himself because he was in slight pain. He could sense Robin and Nami, but he couldn't tell what either of them were feeling. Robin was like a completely blank page, but with Nami he could almost feel something for a second and then it was gone.

'You used to be a little like that,' Sanji indicated Nami, 'Now I feel it all.'

Zoro's head was starting to hurt a lot, as the half-Vulcan had predicted, so Sanji brought the barriers back up with some effort and focus. It was not an easy task, after all. He did not separate his personal barriers though, he kept that open for another few moments of warmth before he pulled his hand away and severed the contact.

Zoro's eyes opened a second before Sanji's did. The half-vulcan was giving him a serene little almost smile, the look was strange on his face. As the blond removed his fingers from the psi points his finger tips trailed for a second too long against Zoro's skin. Neither of them commented on look Sanji was giving him seemed very strange, and that was something much more interesting to focus on. His dark eyes glittered expressively as they stared at each other.

"That was..." Zoro trailed off, unable to describe the experience. Language was difficult sometimes.

"Weird?" Sanji finished for him. That was probably the easiest way to describe it.

"Yeah," he stood slightly unsteadily, breaking their eye contact, his head felt fuzzy from the prolonged and unrestrained meld. "I should be getting ready for bed," he said, moving toward the door.

Sanji stood as well, moving to sit on his bed. He lifted his hand to wave in the traditional human way. "Goodnight," he said, his eyes still swimming.

"Night." And he walked out the door.

Sanji kept his emotions much more open after that. The fact that he made an effort to put them on equal grounds was enough for Zoro to smile for a moment.

XxxX

The crew was passing through a small star system filled with many small planets when a strange object appeared in their scanning range. It wasn't a ship, it wasn't even that large. It looked more like a busted, old transmitter. It was tiny, but it was giving off enough of a signal to be detected.

Nami pulled it up in screen and was about to dismiss it as a piece of junk when Luffy stopped her.

"Wait, Nami, I want you to retried that," the captain commanded.

"Why?" Nami wondered, "It's just a piece of debris."

"What if it has something awesome inside!" Luffy insisted, leaning forward like he was trying to see what was inside the hunk of junk.

"Like what?" Usopp asked.

"Like the final transmission of a dying planet!"

"I agree, it would be advisable to bring it in," Robin agreed, ever the history buff.

"Fine," Nami said as she locked onto its coordinates of the object and beamed it into the transporter room.

"Robin, and Usopp, let's go! Oh, and Luffy to Franky," the captain clicked his communicator.

"Aye, captain?" came Franky's reply from down in the engine room.

"I need you in the transporter room."

"Super! I'll be right there."

The captain laughed as he led the two officers off of the bridge. He would need Robin for the history and smart people stuff, and he would need Franky and Usopp to figure out how to work the foreign machinery.

When they walked into the transporter room they saw the thing sitting on the floor. It wasn't especially large even up close. Maybe about the size of a cow. A strange method of size measurement, but accurate all the same.

It didn't take as long as any of them would have expected to figure out how to work the thing, it appeared to be designed for easy use. If only all things were designed that way. There was a capsule in the bottom of the machine. Immediately unsealed it in order to gaze upon its inner secrets. When opened, it let out a small flat disk with a little silver button in the middle of it.

Luffy turned it over in his hands, trying to decided what it way. His crew mates where watching him with puzzled expressions, also thinking very hard.

"Should we press it?" Usopp asked nervously, voicing the thoughts of all the other occupants of the room.

As an answer, Luffy clicked the button. The disk started playing music, it was a calm tingling sound; rather soothing. Luffy let out a string of laughter and tapped his communicator. "Luffy to Brook, you have to come see this." It only seemed logical to bring down his musician to see this thing.

Brook was down within minutes, listening to the soft music. "In all my long life, I don't think I've heard a sound quite like that," he mused. The sound was strange, not like any instrument Brook had ever heard and that was saying something. The mood of the music felt calm and just on the edge of being sad; melancholy was probably a better word for it.

After the discovery of the music, Brook sat aside to listen to the disc as Franky and Usopp tried to figure out how exactly it worked. Meanwhile, Robin's fingers were like lightning across a nearby console as she searched for any similar objects in the database.

After a while of musing, Luffy started to get bored and left the room's occupants to amuse themselves as he headed back to the bridge. He was almost there when he ran into Nami coming from the opposite direction.

"Nami, what are you doing?" He asked in confusion. She was supposed to be on duty watching over the bridge with Sanji and Zoro.

"I was just going to go get something to eat," Nami shrugged lazily, like this was only something she didn't really care either way about.

This confused Luffy even more, "You weren't going to have Sanji make you something?" Sanji would drop anything to make food for Nami and Nami would always gladly have him do things for her.

Nami giggled slightly, "It was a cover, I actually just wanted to escape the bickering for a few minutes. What did you fine in the transmitter?"

"A little machine that plays music," Luffy wasn't sure yet if that was boring or interesting. For now he judged it to be somewhere in between.

"Is that why you called down Brook?" a wane smile crept across the orange haired woman's face.

"Yeah."

"Well, that's cool. Were you going back to the bridge?"

"Yeah, I-" he stopped suddenly, swaying were he stood.

"Are you okay?" Nami asked, reaching out to grab his shoulder before he could fall.

Luffy tried to say that he was fine, but his tongue was too heavy, so he just let out a pathetic sounding groan. It all happened so suddenly, one minute he was fine and the next he felt like all of his nerves were on fire but his mouth wouldn't work enough for cry out.

"Let's get you to sick bay," Nami said, tugging him toward the medical bay. Luffy stumbled along with Nami's aid, for once eager to go see a doctor.

Chopper looked up as they walked in, "What's wrong?" Sometimes he wished that his crew mates wouldn't only come down to visit him when something was horribly wrong with them.

"I don't know, he just got all weird all of a sudden." Nami let Chopper lead Luffy into a bed, taking a step back. Luffy by this point had gone totally limp with no external signs of trauma.

Chopper scanned him with a medical tricorder. His brow furrowed momentarily and quickly turned to panic. He reached over for a hypospray.

"What's wrong?" Nami asked nervously.

"There appears to be a pathogen that had infected a large area of his brain."

"Is it like eating it or something?" Nami asked, horrified.

"It seems to be feeding on his brain activity." The little doctor paused for a moment to think. "I'm going to put him in stasis, that should stop the spread while I can think of something to get it out of his head. Did the effects come on suddenly?" Chopper asked Nami, but before she could answer the communicator chimed.

"Robin to Chopper, doctor, Usopp just collapsed, we are bringing him to the medical bay now.

"I have a sinking suspicion that we have an outbreak on our hands," Chopper said sadly.

Everyone came along with Usopp. Usopp was scanned, judged to be under the same effects as Luffy, and put into stasis.

"What's going on here, doctor?" Robin asked seriously.

"It appears a pathogen has infected both Usopp and Luffy."

"Could this have come from the transmitter?" the romulan enquired.

"No, germs don't make it through the transporter," Franky said with an automatic response, "unless it was concealed, then maybe." There had been a concealed pocket holing the little musical device.

"All the same," Chopper sighed, "let's operate under the assumption that is where this thing came from." He went around scanning all of the rooms inhabitants. "You all also seem to have this pathogen as a not so far along state." He paused for a moment. "Chopper to Sanji."

"Yeah?" Sanji's voice wrung with the echo of annoyance so it would be assumed that he had been interrupted during an argument.

"Are you and Zoro both up on the bridge?" That was fairly obvious but it was still necessary to ask.

"Unfortunately."

"I need you to scan your brains for abnormalities."

"Okay?" There was the whirl of a tricorder. "It all looks fine, what's this about?"

"There's a pathogen that has infected all of us, I need the two of you to stay sealed up there, don't come out until I can think of a plan."

"Be careful. Keep the girls safe."

"They're fine on their own, idiot," came Zoro's irritated voice.

"Will you just-" The communication was cut off my Chopper. He didn't need Zoro and Sanji distracting him right now.

The reindeer turned to his crew mates, "Okay, everyone take a tricorder and scan the surrounding area for signs of this pathogen on external sources. I need to know how this thing is spread."

They all took a tricorder and scanned the area going all the way back to the transporter room but there was nothing.

They regrouped back in the med bay. "So, what exactly happened with the thing you beamed in?" Chopper asked. Franky and Robin had both been put into stasis by this point, having already collapsed.

"Neither of us where there," Nami told him, indicating her ale and Brook. "Luffy just said that they opened the thing and some thing started playing music."

"What sort of thing?"

"It was a disk with a button, when you pressed it it played," Brook told him.

Chopper groaned, "It must be spread through skin to skin contact. Pressing the button must have initiated the spread. That's the best idea I have right now."

Chopper this whole time had been frantically trying to muster up some sort of antidote. Brook had gone down and so had Nami. He had a mixture he thought might work but he didn't have time to test it. It would have to do.

"Chopper to sanji."

"Is everything okay?" Sanji sounded worried.

"Yeah, it's fine but I need you to come down to the med bay. We are all going to be in stasis. There will be a chemical solution in the heating cabinet. When it is done I need you to inject it into each of us, then wait for our vitals to normalize. They will probably go a little crazy at first, but don't worry, it's probably fine. Just to be safe, I want you to keep us under for five hours after the injection. It's fine to touch anything, but don't touch any of us or you'll contract it as well."

"Got it," Sanji confirmed, "Good luck."

Chopper got up onto the sick bed and put in the settings for stasis, hoping with all his might that this would work.

Sanji and Zoro both went down to administer the concoction. Each injection was set up for each particular person but with each one the vitals leaped unnervingly up and down, but they soon evened out and they settled down to wait in the med bay to watch the vial signs. It was hard to say at the moment if it had worked or not. All that was left to do now was wait.

Zoro leaned back, very very bored, they had been at this for almost an hour. An hour of tapping away at their PADDs and not talking to each other, nothing was happening. "Fuck this," he finally said, getting up and moving toward the door.

"Where the hell are you going?" Sanji demanded, "We have to stay here to watch them!" he gestured frantically at the sleeping crew. If he had to suffer through it, then so did Zoro.

"I'll be right back," Zoro assured him, slightly annoyed, "It'll only take a second." True to his word, Zoro returned quickly with a large bottle full of crystal blue liquid.

"Is that what I think it is?" Sanji asked, staring at the sloshing bottle.

"Romulan ale," Zoro nodded. The stuff was so potent that by Federation law it was illegal. "I'm bored. Get drunk with me, you pointy eared freak," Zoro said, taking a gulp and holding it out to Sanji.

"No, thanks," Sanji said, pushing the alcohol away.

Zoro was personally insulted by the dismissal, "What do you mean; no thanks? You have to drink with me."

Sanji just wrinkled his nose, "No, Romulan ale tastes like engine coolant."

"Suck it up," Zoro spat, "I've never seen you get drunk before. Think of it as a bonding exercise."

Sanji shook his head, "That's not going to get me drunk, dumbass."

"There is no way you have a higher alcohol tolerance than me." Zoro was the master of not getting drunk."

"No, stupid, I mean my biology is more closely aligned to a vulcan's. Alcohol will physically do nothing to me."

"That is so sad," Zoro felt genuine sadness for that. Not that he got drunk very often, but it was always nice to know that he could if he wanted to.

Sanji shrugged, "I can't imagine that stuff having any attraction."

"There must be something that gets Vulcans intoxicated."

"Well, there is one thing I can think of," Sanji began, "I mean, one thing that isn't a horribly damaging hardcore drug."

Zoro scooter forward in his seat, "I'm listening."

"Okay," Sanji said seriously, "but you can't tell anyone or else the vulcan high council might send someone to assassinate me or something. They don't like when people can see their weakness." The vulcans were very serious about keeping their own secrets.

Zoro nodded, "Who better to keep your secrets than the person who shares your head space?"

Sanji hummed in agreement, "Fair enough. It's chocolate."

"Chocolate?" Zoro was puzzled.

"The darker the stronger," the half-vulcan nodded.

"But I've seen you eat chocolate before," he could remember Sanji using chocolate in food on several occasions.

"No," Sanji shook his head, "I've cooked with chocolate, but I've never eaten any around you guys. It lowers my mental shields and bad things happen when I do that."

"Well, everyone else is in stasis, so you should be fine." Zoro stood and walked over to the one replicators in the room. Just as he was about to speak, Sanji stopped him.

"No, if I'm going to do this I'm going to get the real chocolate. Wait one second." He ran off in the direction of the kitchen and came back with a large package of dark chocolate.

"Let's see what that stuff can do," Zoro said, he would admit that he was horribly curious of the effect it would have.

Sanji removed the packaging and broke off a piece, he held it up. "I believe the human expression is: cheers?" He gave a little smile.

"Cheers," Zoro said, tapping his flask against the piece of chocolate and they both ingested their inhibiting substances.

Sanji let out a happy sound when he tasted the chocolate on his tongue. "Mmm, I forgot how good this is. I haven't had any since I was thirteen and I made everyone in the Baratie start a massive brawl because I was projecting emotions too much." It had been a rather bloody fight, two klingons died all because Sanji was eating chocolate and someone decided to say something insulting to him. He wasn't even sure what it was anymore, he barely even remembered the incident at all.

"Were you banned from chocolate?" Zoro half laughed, the idea was kind of ridiculous.

Sanji stuffed another piece into his mouth, "Yeah, Zeff said he would seal me in the cargo bay and open the doors to space if I ate anymore chocolate in the restaurant."

"Let's see how long you can hold out then." It wasn't like he was about to be out drank, sort of, by Sanji.

"Okay," Sanji strengthened his mental shields, "you're going be drunk before me," Sanji promised.

"Sure," Zoro drawled, he had this in the bag.

"So, what's the awesomest thing you've ever seen while you've been out floating through space?" Sanji asked in order to start up a conversation. It would be boring if they just sat there, quietly becoming intoxicated. That sounded like a very Zoro thing to do.

"Have you ever seen the wormhole out by Bajor?" Zoro asked over the top of his flask. The wormhole only appeared when something flew close enough to fly through it. When it opened it was a beautiful spiral of color against the dark, empty void.

Sanji shook his head, "Nope, I've never been out that far in that particular direction. I've mostly stuck around in the klingon to vulcan area. Have you ever actually been through the wormhole?"

"Yep, I went out there to collect on a former cardassian war criminal while he was out on his little vacation trip to the gamma quadrant."

"Was it amazing?"

"It was just like everywhere else," Zoro shrugged, "Going through was a bumpy ride though. I felt like I was back in Starfleet trying out the flying simulations for the first time."

Sanji tipped his head back in thought, "I always forget that you used to be in Starfleet, I just can't picture it. You don't look the eager and ready cadet type."

"I was the best at what I did," Zoro smirked.

"But you quit," Sanji pointed out.

"Yeah, it was too boring and restrictive. I'd much rather jump across the galaxy hunting people down." There were far less rules that way.

"Or fly around on a ship full of crazy people?" Sanji giggled, his shields were already starting to slip away. Damn, he had forgotten how potent this stuff was.

"Or do that," Zoro nodded, watching Sanji nibble some more chocolate. "But you went to the Vulcan Academy of Science, which sounds even worse than going to Starfleet," Zoro said, being stuck with a bunch of vulcans was a sure fire way to kill all fun in the surrounding area.

"Oh yeah, that place was full of dicks, what a bunch of assholes," Sanji huffed, "They couldn't comprehend how amazing I was with all their logic and shit. Who the fuck cares!? I don't need to be emotionless like them, I do just fine with my irrational emotions!" Sanji exclaimed.

"Geez, what the hell did they do to you?" He could understand that Vulcans could come off a little condescending, but that was kind of their thing.

"They were a bunch of fucking xenophobic pricks. Like one percent of students there aren't Vulcan, so there isn't like there's much diversity. It's even worse because I'm half betazoid, so they looked at me like some sort of emotional slut!"

Zoro was beginning to figure out what Sanji wasn't allowed to have chocolate, he was pushing his anger outward into the bond and making Zoro angry along with him.

"You kind of are being an emotional slut right now," Zoro said in a tight voice.

"Shut the fuck up, marimo, this chocolate is fucking the best!"

God, he was such a lightweight, or maybe chocolate was stronger than alcohol for vulcans. Either way it was amusing. "But you did graduate," Zoro tried to reign the conversation back in.

"You bet your ass I did, and when I did, I made sure to project my happiness as far as I fucking could. Living there was like being stuck in a freezer with a bunch of Popsicles." Sanji sent a wave of satisfaction sliding through the bond. "But then I didn't know what to do with myself, so I went back to the Baratie. No- actually, I couldn't get a spot on a research vessel with a vulcan crew despite my heigh class rank and other accomplishments. Actually, only one ship rejected me but I was so angry that I was like: fuck it, I'm done, and went back home. I mean, it wasn't exactly like that but that was basically it." Another wave of anger went through the bond.

"You're going to have to stop doing that or I'm going to punch you," Zoro said through gritted teeth. It was almost impossible to not punch him when he was projecting like that.

"Fucking do it, I will kick your ass!" Sanji said, standing unsteadily as he shoved another piece of chocolate into his mouth.

"You're going to try to kick me and fall on your face," Zoro frowned as he watched Sanji sway.

"No, I will kick your fucking head off your fucking shoulders and use it as a kickball or something," Sanji sputters, he looked like he was straining to find words.

"A kickball?" Zoro stared at him incredulously.

"Shut up, it was the first human sport I could think of!" Sanji flailed his arms overly dramatically.

"But really, kickball?"

"I said shut up!" Sanji swung his leg out and Zoro had to duck and tumble from his chair to avoid it.

"Missed me," he teased.

Another kick was directed at him, but it was sloppy and unsteady. Zoro caught it easily and stretched it far enough that Sanji couldn't move. The irritation Sanji was projecting was too much to stop there. Zoro shoved him back and the blond stumbled to the floor.

"Dammit, wh-" Sanji was cut off by Zoro tacking him. They struggled for a while but eventually Sanji seemed to figure out how futile it was in his current state. Zoro had his arms and legs pinned. At least he wasn't completely gone, he still had a few layers of mental borders left otherwise this might be a different sort of situation; a much sexier one. Wait, what?

"What?" Zoro asked at the sudden shift in mood.

"Nothing," Sanji said, substantially calmer, a more contemplative mood. The complete opposite of what he had been feeling before. Sanji moved his pinned arm in a pathetic motion toward the chocolate. Zoro obliged and let him up. The blond scooped up the chocolate and put another piece into his mouth.

"Seriously, what?" Zoro pressed, wondering what could have caused such a reaction.

"I was just thinking about something weird, like really weird."

"What was it? I'm sure I can handle it."

"Uh."

"Tell me."

"Um."

"Just fucking tell me!"

"I was just thinking about how weird Vulcans are, they have to be so conservative about literally everything." Sanji fidgeted with the chocolate wrapper.

Zoro was confused, it was such a random thing to start thinking about, "And?"

"And do you know how Vulcans kiss?" Sanji looked up at him with those dark, oily eyes, or rather eye.

Zoro made a face, "Why were you thinking about kissing while I was pinning you to the ground? Is a better question, don't you think?"

"Shut up, do you know?"

"They just touch their fingers together, right?" He brought the middle and index fingers of both his hands and crossed them.

Sanji nodded, "That's it."

"Yeah, I don't really get it. It's probably a weird Vulcan thing I wouldn't understand, right?"

"Do you want to understand?" Sanji asked.

"What are you suggesting?" Zoro said suspiciously.

Sanji held up the middle and index finger of his right hand.

"You're trying to drunkenly kiss me?" Zoro was not impressed, although he was slightly amused.

Sanji shrugged, "I guess so, I mean next to a mind meld it's not much. I've had my hands all over your brain, touching fingers is like nothing."

"Something makes me doubt that."

"Oh, come on, it's easy." He grabbed Zoro's hand and arranged it into the proper position, his two fingers up.

Zoro stated at him for a moment. "Fine, but I'm going to tease the hell out of you after this," he promised.

"Go ahead, that's something for future Sanji to worry about," present Sanji grinned.

Sanji brought their fingers together, brushed them lightly. Zoro jerked his hand back immediately in shock, not expecting such a strange sensation. It wasn't unpleasant, just unexpected.

"That wasn't even deep contact," Sanji huffed.

"Sorry, I wasn't ready I guess."

"Well, be ready this time." He brought their fingers together again, this time pressing them fully together. It felt very strange for Zoro. He'd never really felt something like it. The contact tingled pleasantly and the longer they stayed together the higher up his arm the feeling crept.

It actually did feel sort of like a kiss, in that it was intimate. It felt much different than a mind meld, this contact was made to feel good for the sake of feeling good. There was no information to be shared, it was just to feel close.

"This is weird," Zoro said, looking at their touching fingers.

"I have to like open a hole in my shields to do it," Sanji explained.

"So, if you let down all your shields with it be like this touching anyone?"

"Probably, I don't think I'd like to find out. Too overwhelming."

"But this is fine?" Zoro raised an eyebrow, looking at their still together hands.

"Yep," Sanji said, popping a 'p' at the end. Zoro sensed a reckless feeling come over Sanji a second before he moved his fingers downward, sending tremors up Zoro's arm. "This is fine."

"I'm pretty sure I've never seen a Vulcan do this," Zoro said indicating Sanji's movement down his fingers.

"That's because it's indecent," Sanji giggled.

"So, are you doing the Vulcan equivalent of shoving your tongue down my throat?"

"Yeah, probably," Sanji's fingers traced over Zoro's palm, moving slowly down and then back up again, as he did so, he opened his mind more and it felt closer. It was really weird, but Zoro didn't attempt to stop the contact. When he got to the top of Zoro's palm, he threaded his fingers with Zoro's. The feeling caught both of them by surprise. Sanji even gave an involuntary gasp.

Zoro looked away from their hands up to Sanji's face. The science officer was still looking at their hands, although he seemed to have stepped forward at some point because he was a lot closer than Zoro remembered. Feeling Zoro looking at him, he looked up with those swimming dark eyes of his. He leaned closer and rested his head against Zoro's shoulder.

It was weird, Zoro's whole body tingled, feeling completely attuned to Sanji. Their minds touched with a sort of sleepy warmth. Part of him was questioning just what the hell was going on and pointing out how out of it the half-vulcan was, and the other part just wanted to stand there and soak up this feeling.

Neither of them could bring themselves to moving, so they stood there until the alarm on Luffy's stasis chamber went off, signaling that the pathogen had been cleared from his system. He they all still had about three hours left in there.

Sanji turned his head slightly to look at the sleeping crew, his brain too hazy to think of anything eloquent. He was starting to get dizzy, leaning most of his weight onto Zoro.

"What?" Zoro asked in confusion.

Sanji realized that he must have made some sort of sound but he couldn't think of what to say. He just wanted to lay down on the ground for a while, the sensations were becoming a little overwhelming by this point. Once he had that thought he realized they were being lowered to the ground, he must had indicated what he wanted to Zoro.

From the floor Sanji smiled up at the moss head leaning over him, their hands were still intertwined. "You're such a good friend," Sanji said thickly, his eyes not really focusing on what was in front of him.

Zoro gave him a very strange look and began to withdraw his hand. Sanji let the crushing sadness that action would have had wash through the bond. That made the swordsman hesitated and in the end he took a seat next to Sanji. Sanji reverted into a pool of hazy emotion, he wasn't quite sleeping and he wasn't quite awake, but Zoro was still holding his hand.

When the effects of he chocolate began to subside, Sanji did fall asleep and Zoro withdrew his hand to go get his PADD. He sat back on the floor again, the side of his leg pressed against Sanji's back. They remained in a similar state until the stasis chambers began to sound their release and the other crew members began to wake up.

Nami was the first one to be fully aware of what was going on. She looked down to the two of them on the floor in confusion. "What are you doing down there?"

Zoro tried to think of a logical explanation, "I was dealing with a drunk betazoid-vulcan; a beta-can," he had continued to drink after Sanji fell asleep, romulan ale was very potent.

"Or a val-zoid," Nami said, hopping down from the bed.

"He's projecting very heavily," Robin noted.

"What's he projecting?" Zoro asked, he'd gone a little emotionally numb.

"Contentment," Robin said after a pause.

"Aw, that's so cute," Usopp snickered.

"Shut up," Zoro spat, on alert.

"You better take him back to his room, he's a little overpowering. It just makes me want to go to sleep," Nami yawned.

"Nah, I'm just going to leave him here," Zoro said, poking at Sanji's side and grinning when he cringed.

"You're the worst space husband ever," Nami said, shanking her head in disapproval.

"We aren't married, dammit!"

Sanji and snaked out and caught Zoro's. He held on tightly, so when Zoro jerked the hand away he still had it.

"This proves nothing," Zoro insisted, trying to get Sanji's hand off and ignore the amusement he was exhibiting as his eyes opened again.

"Worst husband ever," Sanji snickered.

"You shut up!"

"Take me back to my room," Sanji sighed.

"Go yourself."

"No."

Sanji put pressure through the bond and Zoro gave in, ignoring the snide grins of the rest of the crew. The sooner they were out, the better. He stood and drew Sanji up by the arm. Sanji wobbled for a second but he righted himself and waved to their sleepy friends as Chopper checked them over.

Zoro took them down the way to Sanji's room. They entered and Zoro pusher Sanji unceremoniously into his bed.

"Sleep, idiot," Zoro said as he turned to leave but Sanji stopped him.

"Zoro," he said softly and seriously, "I mean it, you're a great friend."

Zoro shifted uncomfortably, "Yeah, well we're nakama," he shrugged, "But I don't think calling me a great friend hours after vulcan making out with me is covered by that term."

Sanji hummed and mumbled something very Vulcan sounding.

"It's rude to say things other people don't understand," Zoro said irritably.

"I said, shut up, I'll deal with you when I can think straight." That was most defiantly not what he had said by Zoro let it go.

"Fine, goodnight, idiot."

"Goodnight, friend."

Zoro laid in bed for a long time that night, wondering what his life had come to.

XxxX

A/N: the Vulcan chocolate thing comes from a non-canon book, I believe, but I like the idea.

*giggles* I put the most subtle little romance thing in there ever based on Vulcan language. I'm going to guess that no one will get it but I'll wait for another chapter to explain in more fully and with more impact ;)

sorry I accident uploaded the next chapter so I may have gotten a sneak peek for next month ^^ thanks to Michikuni Mayu for pointing it out. You're amazing c: also madamfromicidae

Thanks.


	5. Cave In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll keep my helmet on  
> Just in case my head caves in  
> (In case my head caves in)  
> 'Cause if my thoughts collapse  
> Or my framework snaps  
> It'll make a mess like you wouldn't believe  
> Tie my handle bars to the stars  
> So I stay on track (so I stay on track)  
> And if my intentions stray I'll wrench them away  
> Then I'll take my leave and I won't even look back
> 
> -"Cave In" Owl City

When Sanji woke up he wasn't sure what he was feeling. He felt physically very heavy and hungover, but emotionally he knew that things were all fucked up. He had, in the way of his people, or half of his people, kissed Zoro. What exactly did that mean? He wasn't sure how he felt about it now that he could actually take the time to consider it.

At the time, it had been pleasant and Zoro hadn't exactly protested. Then again, Zoro hadn't really known what he was getting himself into. Sanji felt a pang of guilt for dragging Zoro into this whole mess. He suppressed that feeling and moved on to repressing other things. After all, It was probably just the residual effects of chocolate telling him that he would gladly commit the same actions over again and this time sober, because that was just insane.

Ugh, he was not looking forward to talking about this. What should his response be? It was probably best to act like nothing happened until Zoro tried to confront him. He could pretend not to remember, but that felt too deceitful. Nah, he would just brush it off as a very reckless decision, because that's totally what it was. Okay, he could do this.

With that decided, Sanji got up and ready to make breakfast. He was surprised to find that Zoro was already awake and the marimo joined him as he walked down the hall.

"Morning, friend," Zoro said in a disgustingly sweet tone, throwing back that word. Dammit, why did he have to say that?

Sanji cringed, "Shut up, I didn't know what I was saying."

"Or what you were doing." Zoro said nonchalantly as they walked the empty hall.

"Yeah, so go back to bed; no need to talk."

"Nah, I'm already up, might as well go down with you."

"I don't want to talk about this," Sanji grumbled, as they neared the kitchen.

"Great, me either, we can be uncomfortable together." That pretty much summer up this whole experience; uncomfortable together.

"Why do you want to talk about this so badly, you're usually the unfeeling manly brooding sort of guy," Sanji huffed, as he started pulling out the ingredients he would need for breakfast.

Zoro leaned against the counter in a decidedly casual manner. "Usually, I would keep my manly distance, but your discomfort is doubling my discomfort and I can't deal with this all day."

Sanji blinked, realizing that he wasn't bothering to keep a strong grasp on his emotions. "Sorry." He quickly fixed the problem. "There, now we don't have to talk about anything."

"Your insistence not to talk about it makes me want to talk about it more," Zoro hummed, "What's got you so nervous, cook?"

"Nothing," Sanji trained a calm expression onto his face.

"If you keep avoiding the subject I'm going to assume that you have buried romantic feelings for me that you're struggling with," Zoro grinned.

Sanji laughed, "You wish."

"Spill, blondie."

Sanji raised his hands in surrender, "Alright, fine, you've got me. I think it was probably just the intoxication combined with the fact that we are bonded. It was a more basic response when my usual self was out of commission," Sanji sighed.

"I guess that makes sense," the green haired man mused, "I found it more amusing that you called me friend twice last night. Tell me, do you get that touchy with all of your friends?"

Sanji cringed again in embarrassment, "Shut up."

Zoro gave him a long look. "You're still not saying something, I can feel it."

"Really? You must be getting better at seeking out my emotions," Sanji said ruefully.

"Just tell me already."

Sanji stopped preparing breakfast for a moment to actually look at Zoro, an act that caught the swordsman off guard. "Do you know anything about the Vulcan language?" he asked, seriously.

"No."

"Well, there are different words with slightly different meaning than can all be covered by the word friend. If I were to call you a friend, while I was being honest about our relationship I would use ne ki'ne, meaning a trusted friend and warrior. Although, recently telansu, a person who you have a close relationship with, would also work," Sanji explained reluctantly.

"Yeah, so?" It was weird to actually hear Sanji call him a friend, but he didn't see where this was going.

"So, I didn't use either of those words."

"Which one did you use then?"

"I used t'hy'la," Sanji said like it had some significance to it.

"What does that one mean?"

"It essentially means life long companion. It has three contexts to it, friend, brother, and lover."

"And which one were you-"

Sanji groaned, "Does it really matter? It's bad anyway you look at it. Look, just forget about it. This bond is obviously getting to my head, maybe it'll help if we stay away from each other for a while."

Zoro wasn't sure how exactly he felt about that but he agreed none the less. Anything to avoid emotional confrontation. "Alright, I'll be off in the holodeck until you're done here," he said shortly.

"Yeah, I'll call for you when breakfast is ready," Sanji grumbled as Zoro left. He did feel a little better after getting that out, but it was still extremely embarrassing. He continued on with his cooking, trying to distract himself.

Fuck, he was just being stupid, wasn't he? Yeah, but that wasn't anything unusual.

Moving steadily away from Sanji, Zoro walked determinedly to the holodeck, not giving himself time to think. He had to keep his emotions shielded away so Sanji couldn't read him.

As he stepped into the black and yellow room, Zoro listed his commands for the computer, "Computer, training program Roronoa Three." It was his favorite program. He would be set to fight a nausicaan on the craggy ridge of a volcano. A bit dramatic maybe, but it was his favorite. He removed his shirt and set about beating up the computer generated enemy with the safety off. He always fought with the safety off, despite Chopper's warnings. It was just ankle interesting that way.

When breakfast was done, Sanji contacted the first officer via communicator, rather than the bond. There was something cold and uncomfortable about that. Both of them felt it, but neither was willing to say anything about it, especially now that everyone else was there for breakfast.

Zoro came in sweaty from his fight. Sanji made his displeasure known through his displayed emotion, but did not comment, which only seemed to make the oddity of it stand out.

The rest of the crew seemed oblivious to the discomfort between their connected crew mates. The meal was rather uncomfortable for only Zoro and Sanji. The others did not breach the topic, which was probably for the best. They just carried on with their conversations as Sanji and Zoro both angrily ate their food. Zoro left as soon as he was finished, long before anyone else was done. Sanji very much disapproved of that as well.

XxxX

Later that day, Zoro was walking along the corridor down to engineering, one of the lights in his weapons storage unit was malfunctioning. He didn't need Franky or Usopp for that sort of fix, he just had to go down to get some tools and fix that for himself. He probably should write down the malfunction in his log, but he had left his PADD in his room and couldn't be bothered to go get it.

Technically, he was on break right now, but instead of doing something fun, like training, he was fixing a stupid light. He was maybe avoiding Sanji a little bit as well, which was awkward because Sanji could sense Zoro's uncomfortableness around him. It was his fault to being so damn affectionate while he was drunk. Seriously, what had his life come to?

As the weapons specialist walked along the corridor, one of the pipes running down the side of the wall made a rattling sound. He paused for a moment, one could never be too sure of what was going on inside a starship, but the sound stopped so he kept going. Two steps later, the same pipe exploded in a hot burst of steam.

It was only a steam pipe, luckily not a coolant one, but the steam it emitted was enough to burn the skin. As it touched Zoro's flesh he felt it searing up his side. He stumbled back with a cry of pain.

Elsewhere in the ship, Sanji was having a pleasant conversation with Nami in his little greenhouse. She was taking a break and decided to help the blond tend to his plants, she was feeling rather giving at the moment. Such moods were rare for her, so Sanji's should feel blessed.

"Why would you not want to visit Risa?" Nami was saying, she was surprised to hear that the blond had not been there before.

"I don't know, I just don't think I'd like it much on Risa," Sanji shrugged, he'd never been to the vacation planet, but the idea of being surrounded by a bunch of tourists was not one he liked."

"Sanji, you would defiantly love it there. All people do is relax, eat, and seek love, those are all things you would find enjoyable. I don't know how you couldn't like it," Nami said, rolling her eyes.

"I don't know, there's just something about it that makes me reluctant to go. I think it's probably the helpful nature of the people. I met a risian man once and his emotional state creeped me out, it was weird, but maybe it was just that one guy. Maybe I'm being silly," Sanji shrugged, he'd never heard anything about the risians being anything other than friendly.

"Maybe it's the sexual nature of the planet. Maybe your brain is telling you that you wouldn't like it there because you know you can't take advantage of it anymore," Nami grinned as she started to spread fertilizer over the plants.

"Just because I'm bonded doesn't mean I can't seek out a sexual partner," Sanji said, quirking his head to the side, "Although, I expect that it would be very awkward for the party not involved, what with the resonating thoughts.

"Sanji, it makes me very sad when you talk about cheating on your doting husband," Nami shook her head in mock disapproval.

Sanji laughed, "I remind you, my dear that we are not actually married."

"Maybe not but you had a lot of hand to hand action the other day," she said suggestively, emphasizing the 'hand to hand' part.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sanji said nervously. He remembered full well what he had done and Nami didn't even know the full extent of it.

"Sure you don't," Nami rolled her eyes, "I'm just saying, it's fine to be attracted to Zoro. I mean, someone has to be."

"And that someone is not-" he cut himself off mid sentence, his face had gone suddenly very pale and his expression was one of distress.

"Sanji? What's-" Nami was not given the chance to ask what was wrong as Sanj ran from the room, rudely leaving his precious flower behind. That was very unlike him.

The blond raced down the halls toward where he felt Zoro was located. Pain was still throbbing through the bond, sharpening Sanji's senses. Sanji found the marimo pressed up against the wall of one of the corridors, his skin already red and blistering from the burns. Sanji skidded to a halt and knelt down next to him.

"Are you alright?" he asked breathlessly, examining the extent of the damage. The burns looked serious, he had to get to the med bay.

'Just great,' Zoro thought, not trusting his mouth to speak, he was too busy holding back the massive amount of pain he was experiencing.

"Let's get you to sick bay," Sanji said, pulling Zoro up, despite the painful protest. He sent a soothing wave through the bond, it wasn't much, but it was the best he could do for now. Adrenaline was still pumping through his system and he was slightly panicked from the sudden scare. It had shocked him how worried he had been for Zoro's safety. He had ditched Nami for gods sakes. He had panicked, plain and simple.

Brushing the thoughts aside, he guided the swordsman to the med bay. Chopper immediately began the examination, although he first gave Zoro a sedative. Sanji waited quietly as the doctor went about the examination, body humming with energy. He fidgeted nervously with his communicator as he held back one of Zoro's arms for the doctor, stroking his thumb back and forth to send a pleasant feeling through the bond.

"Sanji," Chopper said exasperatedly, turning to the blond as he was moving about distractingly.

"What?" Sanji asked, startled from his thoughts.

"You're projecting, I need you to leave while I work on him. You're being too distracting."

Sanji paused to think of a way to stay, but found none. "Fine," he said, "I don't care anyway." An obvious lie.

"He'll be fine, I'm just going to put him under a dermal regenerator for a few hours," Chopper assured him.

"Gotcha, have fun fixing that pretty face of his," Sanji said as he left the sick bay.

Sanji left sick bay to report for bridge duty. Luffy was sitting idly in his chair while Robin typed away at her PADD.

"Zoro's in sick bay," Sanji informed the captain as he took his place at the science station.

"What happened?" Luffy asked.

"A pipe burst and it burned his face."

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine."

"Are you okay?" Robin asked.

Sanji gave her a strange look, "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You just look a but distracted is all."

"Nah, I'm fine." Sanji was feeling more and more that he was getting too involved with Zoro's mind, and what was worse was that he didn't know how to stop it.

Bridge duty only lasted an hour without incident and then Sanji went back to his room at about the same time Zoro started to wake up.

Zoro's first sensation was the stretched feeling of the skin on his face. He could tell his skin was being mended, he'd been through this process a good many times. He could also feel tension from Sanji on the other side of the bond.

'Hey, cook, stop worrying, I'm going to be fine,' Zoro thought smugly, when he was coherent enough to do so.

'I wasn't worried about you, asshole,' Sanji denied, although he was letting traces of relief slip through. Zoro wondered if he was doing it on purpose, or if he was just getting used to it. He wasn't sure which answer would be more worrying either.

'Really? Because you looked pretty freaked out when you rushed to my aid.'

'Shut up, what was I going to do if you died?'

'Cry yourself to sleep every night and sleep in my bed to feel closer I me.'

'Ew, that sounds pretty stalkerish.'

'I was trying to think of teenager romance stuff.'

'Whatever, maybe I'll just go into your room now and sleep on your bed, I am kind of tired. Or I could go through your stuff.'

'You don't know my door code.'

'Oh yeah?' There was a pause and then a sense of triumph. 'Suck it, I'm in.'

'Fine, you win, don't touch my stuff'

'Nah, I'm going to go through all of it.' There was a feeling of devious mirth coming from Sanji.

'What are you doing?' he wondered lazily

'Nothing.'

'You're doing something at my expense, aren't you?'

'What? I would never.'

'You are and I know it."

'Psh, shows what you know. I'm over here being all innocent and you suspect me of something. Not cool, healthy relationships are built on trust.'

'Fine, sorry I asked about what you're doing in MY room."

'Alright, sorry, I'll go down and visit you when I'm done with this.'

'Why would I care?'

'No reason, I'm just going because I want to see Chopper.'

'Well, good, I wouldn't want you coming all the way down here for me.'

'Well, I wasn't going to.'

'Fine.'

'Fine.'

XxxX

Sanji showed up in sick bay about half an hour later, during which time Zoro slept in a drug induced haze. The blond was still feeling rather pleased with himself when he walked through the door. Zoro's eyes narrowed at the sight of him.

"What did you do?"

"You'll find out eventually," Sanji grinned as he approached the bed where Zoro was being healed. The burns were mostly gone by now, only a soft scar tissue remained and that would soon be gone as well. "Well, your face looks better," Sanji poked his face gently. It didn't hurt, which was a good sign.

"Sanji, don't poke at him," Chopper said as he walked by, "He needs I heal."

"My apologies, doctor," Sanji grinned as Chopper stammered and blushed with happiness.

"What are you even doing here?" Zoro grumbled.

"I'm just here to enjoy the atmosphere of sick bay, like I said."

"That's not what you said."

"Well, then I'm doing whatever I said I was doing."

"That's a pretty lame excuse."

"Yeah, well I'm not trying very hard."

"So, if I read between the lines, I'll find that you are here for me?"

"I could be here for any number of reasons, but that would be a pretty good assumption."

"Well, don't I feel loved."

"Shut up, my brain is just messing with me."

"Sure it is."

"I'm serious, this is why we should spend time apart."

"Well, you seem to be doing a great job of that."

"Shut up."

"I'd almost go so far as to say that you can't resist me and all my charm."

"You have no charm."

"Which makes it even more interesting that you're here. I didn't even need to charm you into concern about my state of health, you did it all on your own."

Sanji huffed, "Like I said, I'm not responsible for my actions."

"If I wasn't in control of my actions, I think I'd do something crazy."

"Are you trying to get me to do something crazy?"

"I'm just saying that if I were out of control way awsomer things would happen. Nothing would stand in my way."

"What are you-"

"I'm saying that if I were out of control, I would go all resistance is futile, prepare to make out with me."

"Ew, what are you, some sort of deranged sex borg?"

"Fine, if you want to do this so badly," Zoro exclaimed."

"What are you talking-" Sanji was cut off as Zoro pressed their fingers together. "Oh."

"Don't read too much into this, loser, your worrying is just starting to annoy me and I want it to go away."

"How am I not supposed to read into such an uncharacteristic action!?" Sanji protested.

"You just don't question it."

"You- ugh, fine, whatever." The contact was separated. "I'm just going to hang out in here until you're done."

"Dammit, I think I've only made you more attached."

"You should have been more careful, idiot, I hate this as much as you do."

Sanji stayed in sick bay until Zoro was out.

"Your face is all brand new again," Sanji said, pinching his cheek.

Zoro slapped his had away, "Fantastic, now if you'll excuse me, I have work to do."

"Fine, fine, but before you go," he reached out and pressed their fingers together as a small farewell.

Zoro stared at their hands, "We should really talk about this," he frowned.

"Nah, this is fine, we can deal with that later," Sanji shrugged.

"We're so good at communication," Zoro grumbled.

"Oh, yeah, before I forget," Sanji kicked him hard in the shin.

"Fuck," Zoro swore, "What was that for?"

"You know what you did."

"I really don't."

"Then I guess you'll find out later," Sanji laughed as they started off down their separate ways.

And then they finished off their days with a boring normality weighed down by abnormal thoughts. Or, at least they thought the day was over.

Later that night, or rather early in the morning, Zoro shot up out of bed, the captain was calling them up to attention. From the confusion radiating from Sanji, he had no idea what was going on either. They rushed to dress and met up in the hallway, running with the others to the bridge.

Once everyone was assembled the captain spoke up, "We got a distress call," he said seriously, pressing a button on his console and pulling up the message on the screen. There was a creature onscreen with translucent looking skin, it had four arms, two of them clenching at a wound at its side. It had two dark reptile like eyes, black hair, and six sharp spikes protruding along the line of its brows as well as its chin. Half of the creatures body seemed to have been burned and it was standing in a dimly lit room filled with the shifting shadows of what we're probably people.

"We require assistance," the creature hissed in a feminine sounding voice but it was impossible to tell not knowing the species. "All attempts at diplomacy have failed, the council has voted to have us exterminated. Please help, our leader-" there was an explosion in the distance and a delayed shock wave that rocked the camera until the transmission cut out.

Luffy frowned at the video, wishing there were more, "The origin of the message is about nine hours from here at warp nine."

"Aye, captain," Nami said, jumping into her navigator's seat and pulling up the coordinates of origin.

Everyone was in motion now, each doing their part to make the ship function more effectively. This was the sort of thing they lived for.

Franky managed to make the trip an hour shorter than planned by some magic of engineering. The planet was slightly larger than earth, desert like with almost no liquid water. Yet somehow there was still life. The planet had three large moons and two smaller ones and there were many nonorganic, mechanical satellites orbiting as well. From up where they were, the ship couldn't see much indicating any violent action taking place, but then there wouldn't be much that they could see.

Nami tried to hail the planet, but received no reply of any kind. It was impossible to tell if there was even anyone down there because something was disrupting their scars of the planet. It was very annoying.

"I want everyone down on the surface," Luffy said. "Nami turn on the autopilot." Nami obliged, putting the computer in control of the ship. The computer would still react to any voice command made by one of the crew from the surface, so it wasn't much of a worry just leaving the ship to just float around. The computer was smart after all, it could make tactile decisions on its own. With that all set, the crew went down and piled into the transporter room.

Before they beamed down to a potentially hostile world they had to send down someone to check the conditions on the surface. That person was Luffy, he always insisted on going first. It would have made more sense to send Zoro down first, seeing as he was the combat officer and not the captan of a starship, but Luffy was insistent about being the test for this sort of thing, being the idiot that he was.

At the transporter console, Usopp put in the coordinates as Luffy stood on the transport pad. A few clicks and Luffy was a load of particles floating down to the planet's surface.

After a pause of about twenty seconds, Luffy's voice came through on Zoro's communicator.

"Luffy to Zoro. Guys, this place is empty," there was a static quality to the audio but he came through clearly enough.

"No hostile life though?" Zoro asked.

"Not that I can see. I think you guys can come down now."

"Got it."

They all had to take the transport pad two at a time, Usopp configured the computer to send them down all and hopped on with Brook for the last transport. There was a slight tingling sensation and the transporter room dissolved from view, replaced by an lush green landscape. They were standing on what appeared to be a road surrounded by empty buildings.

"I thought this was a desert planet," Usopp said in confusion.

"It was supposed to be," Sanji scowled down at his tricorder.

"This is where the transmission came from?" Zoro asked.

"Yes, this is the place," Nami confirmed.

Sanji lifted his little box, taking the readings from the surface. "I'm still not getting any life signs, but then, I can't get any of ours right now either," he said perplexed, "But there is a residual transmission signal not far from this spot." He didn't wait for a response, he started walking off in the direction of the reading. About fifty feet from where they had beamed down, in one of the lifeless buildings, was a mangle of technology. "This is it," Sanji sighed. There were no bodies in sight but there was a dry pinkish stain on the ground that may have been a foreign sort of blood.

"This doesn't look promising," Zoro said, staring at the stain. He didn't like this place, it felt weird. He was getting a creepy 'someone's watching us' vibe. Looking around, there was nothing there, just a lot of empty buildings.

"Do you think something was trying to lure us down here?" Chopper wondered.

"It's hard to say," Robin said, kneeling down to pick up a half torn and very dirty book, it was too far gone to be useful.

"We have to make sure," Luffy insisted.

They poked around a little more, but not finding anything they went to explore the other buildings. They were in a city, or so it seemed. It looked like everyone had up and disappeared, although the signs of damage from the shock wave were clearly visible. Everyone wandered off in their own direction, all wary of their surroundings. It was good that they had decided to split up because Zoro had already gotten himself lost and thus they could investigate while looking for their swordsman.

Sanji continued his sweep of the area with the tricorder. If this was some sort of false environment made to trap them, then it was a very good one, everything seemed more or less as he would have expected in an area such as this one. He had run into false environments before and they were always very annoying.

There was a sharp burst of pain in the side of the blond's throat, he brought his hand up to feel something sticking out from the flesh. He tugged it out of place, it appeared to be some sort of dart. Blearily, he tried to spot the source of the object but saw nothing before collapsing onto the ground. He was not unconscious but everything felt fuzzy and he couldn't move. Belatedly, he tried to reach out for Zoro, but he wasn't sure he managed it.

Zoro blinked as he felt the connection between himself and Sanji falter and take on a strange quality. He looked around in confusion, although he didn't know what direction he was meant to be looking in. He wasn't really even sure what had happened.

'Cook?' he extended himself to the link and could feel nothing. No, that wasn't quite right. It was more like reaching for something that was just too far away to reach, he could still feel the bond between them. It was strange and he panicked for a moment, not knowing what was going on. Then there was a stab of pain in his shoulder. He spun in the direction of the attack, his phaser ready to be fired, when another pain struck his back, then another in his neck. His vision tunneled and he hit the ground hard, unable to move.

He must have blacked out after that because he woke up behind the plasma screen of a prison cell. Consciousness came back slowly and with a fuzzy hue to it. The room was dark aside from the blue glow of plasma. He sat up too quickly and his stomach rolled in protest, so he sat back again. His first reaction was to reach of for Sanji, but the blond still felt far away. It was a strangely hollow sensation after being so close for an extended period of time. He actually kind of missed the humming of Sanji's mind right alongside his own. He felt very alone without it.

He shook himself and made an effort to look out of the cell. He was in a hallway full of many cells like his, but none of them seemed to be filled. His waking up must have sent an alert through the system, because soon enough some of the aliens he had seen before came to meet with him. They were much smaller than he had expected.

"What organization are you from?" one of the aliens asked.

"The United federation of planets," Zoro replied automatically.

There was mumbling between the aliens.

"Do you know where the rebels are?" The one who seemed to be the leader spoke up.

"What rebels?" Zoro hadn't known about anyone, let alone the political rebels on this planet.

"They contacted your ship," the alien insisted.

"Yeah, but when we arrived they were gone."

"They were not transporter back up to your ship?"

"No, we were trying to find them when you captured us."

"I find that hard to believe, there is no way the city was evacuated so quickly. I think you beamed them up and brought them to safety."

"Then why would we still be on the surface?"

"Looking to aid your new allies by destroying us."

"We don't destroy people, our prime directive is not to interfere with people."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"We were responding to a distress call, it's standard procedure to follow those up," Zoro said in a frustrated manner, extraterrestrial miscommunications were the worst.

There was another moment a muttering.

"Do you know of the terrible things they have done?"

"No." Zoro felt a sinking in his stomach. He hoped that they hadn't been aiding the baddies, but then again this group could be lying to make them look bad.

"Their agenda," said the alien seriously, "is to purify our species through eugenics and the systematic destruction of those not suited for life. After that we would become a space fairing world and join such giants as the federation."

Zoro swore, why did they have to come to aid of the guys who idolized the nazis and children of Doctor Soong? "I'm sorry, we didn't know."

The main alien look at his with suspicion. "I don't trust his words. Take him to be filtered." The alien gave a wave of dismissal and retreated while the others came forward. They cuffed him and led him from the cell, he imagined that he could have escaped, but if he tried and failed he would be put in a very bad position, so he let himself be led away. He really hoped that being filtered didn't mean they would pick him apart and sort his body parts.

He was taken into a room containing a single chair and made to sit in it. A figure approached him and he felt a very bad feeling about this situation.

The figure put one of its six fingers to his forehead. Zoro gasped at the sudden feeling of having someone his his head. It felt different than it did with Sanji. Sanji was always warm and respectful of his boundaries, this person was cold and disconnected, ripping through his memories in order to gain information.

He felt like he was getting a detailed dental exam, having someone roughly poke around inside of him. They weren't even touching anything important at first. They moved from personal information to the information they were actually looking for. Once they had that they did some exploring, looking through everything they could find.

Zoro was paralyzed. The alien brushed against the strained bond, plucking at it like a rubber band and sending a pang of lonliness through him. He wanted Sanji back. God, even knowing that it was true made him want to punch himself in the face. He had to find a way to make the feeling stop.

Not finding anything useful, figure withdrew and Zoro was dragged back to his cell as he struggled.

"Your information was not useful, you will be terminated. Evidence of your visit will be destroyed," the alien who had filtered him said.

"But what about-" Zoro meant to ask about his friends, but the creatures flat out ignored him as they walked away. Zoro let out a frustrated sound and spent about a minute being too irritated to do anything. Then he realized that they were going to terminate him, so he should probably get moving.

Zoro glanced around the room, searching for some way out. These aliens were shorter than him by quite a few inches, so he could touch the ceiling. The ceiling surface was smooth and dutiable but it was built for individuals not as large or as strong as as Zoro. The swordsman punched the panel an it pealed up slightly around the edges, he had to move fast.

He tore open the ceiling panel and pulled himself up into the hollow space above it. It was not especially spacious and it was filled with some sort of insulation that made his skin itch all over. He crawled his way toward what appeared to be an alien equivalent of a Jeffries Tube. There was a panel that opened for maintenance of the wiring. Zoro quickly opens the panel and crawled inside, thanking his good luck. He wasn't sure which way he should be going so he made the random decision to go to the left.

He crawled and crawled, it wasn't long before he could hear the alert that he had escaped from his cell. He had to leave this tube, they would be sending people looking for him.

He took the first exit he could fine and came out still in an area full of cells. He couldn't see anyone else around so he ran.

He ran sharply around a corner and smacked directly into someone. Flat on his back, Zoro recognize who it was instantly.

"Franky?" he said in astonishment.

"Zoro! Super, we found you!" Behind the tall man were Robin, Usopp, Brook, and Chopper. When Sanji, Zoro, Luffy, and Chopper had failed to return after everyone split up, the rest of the group had beamed back up to the ship and searched for anywhere they might have been taken, finding a tiny building not far from where they had been. They had beamed themselves into the facility, armed and ready, located a map thanks to the computer system, and had broken out Chopper.

"Do you know where the others are?" Zoro asked, breathlessly.

"Robin's got the map, bro."

"Well, fuck, what are we waiting for?" A grin spread over the swordsman's face, he was glad to be a part of such an amazing crew.

Not wasting anymore time, they dashed toward their still missing friends. Luffy was the first to be found, they hadn't gotten around to interrogating him yet, and he was overjoyed to see them. He'd had the same idea as Zoro, punching the ceiling, although when they found him he was only halfway through the tiles.

Sanji was next, oddly enough as they approached, Zoro still couldn't really feel the betazoid-vulcan the way he usually could. It wasn't until the shield was dropped by Franky he was suddenly flooded by Sanji's emotion.

That was a relief, it was good to feel that familiar presence. Sanji echoed the feeling, although he didn't outwardly show it. He was more focused on getting everyone out.

They met resistance before finding Chopper. A small group of aliens with plasma guns made a go at them. It was an issue easily resolved by a few well aimed phaser shots by Zoro and Usopp. Phasers were set to stun, of course, no need to go about murdering any aliens, no matter how big of jerks they were.

When they found Chopper, he had been interrogated but seemed to be only a little rattled by the experience.

"Is that what it's like to meld with Sanji?" Chopper asked as they started to run from the new wave of approaching aliens.

Zoro felt a small pang of guilt from Sanji at those words. "No," he said, "that is the opposite of what it's like," Zoro assured out of honestly and maybe a little to boost Sanji's emotional state, which it did.

Now they had to get back a communication device to alert the ship that they wanted to get the heck out of there. The communicators worn by those who had gone back up to the ship didn't seem to by working in this building, they would need a specialized transmission.

As they ran, they became aware they they were being pursued by vehicles quite like they of the ancient earth Segway but with plasma guns attached; not very nice.

They couldn't hear the vehicles behind them, they were silent as death. It was impossible to tell where they were without turning around and wasting time. So, they all ran and ran and ran. Every so often there would be a blast of plasma that would only just miss them.

Slightly ahead of them, the wall was burst open and more aliens began streaming in.

"Attack!" shouted the leader of this new pack, aiming for the advancing aliens behind them, before being shot in the face by Zoro.

"Why the hell did you do that?" Sanji shouted at him, "They looked like they were going to help us."

"Just in case they where a bunch of dicks," Zoro shouted back. This had probably been why they were contacted. After beaming down to the planet, they would be captured and become the main focus of attention while theses so called rebels readied themselves to invade.

The crew made their stand when they found a base wide intercom system. With phasers and plasma guns they'd nicked off the aliens they'd taken out, they stood their ground as Usopp frantically reconfigured the device.

Shot after shot they stood, neither side making much headway, but it gave Usopp the time he needed.

When the device was ready, Luffy tapped the communicator. "Luffy to the Sunny, computer beam the crew up, sequence alpha!"

The computer could only transport two people up at a time and given this sort of situation it had an order with which to do so given any sort of situation. In sequence alpha, the first to go up were Nami and Usopp. Sanji was always insisting that Robin should go up first instead of Usopp, but Robin was a fucking terrifying sight to see when she was fighting, she could handle herself about as well was Sanji and Zoro could, so there was no logical reason to send her up first when she might be needed.

Usopp and Nami dissipated into a cloud of blue particles. It would take a moment before they would be set for the next ones and the aliens were starting gain ground. Next to go were Brook and Chopper. Luffy only just dodged a plasma blast. Then were Franky and Robin. Sanji was grazed on the shoulder. And the last group, Sanji and Luffy. Zoro, being the weapons officer, was the last to go up.

Before being beamed up, Sanji met the swordsman's eyes, 'Just hold out one minute, if you die I'll be pissed.'

Zoro sent him a wave of assurance before his consciousness became distant again.

XxxX

The ship rocked as Sanji's feet manifested on the transporter pad of the Thousand Sunny. He was anticipating a level surface when they went up but if felt like the ship was under fire. Nami was gone form the room, probably to take over from the computer to doge the phaser fire.

Usopp was manning the transporter, a look of panic on his face and leaking heavily from his person.

"What is it?" Sanji demanded, stumbling as the ships shields took another hit.

"I'm having trouble locking on to Zoro's signal," Usopp said distractedly as he continued to press buttons in an effort to lock on.

Sanji's heart clenched more painfully than he searing plasma burn on his arm.

"What's wrong?" Luffy asked, trying to get a look at the screen in front of Usopp.

"I'm getting a lot of ion interference, I think they're trying to stop us from taking him, I had enough trouble getting the two of you up here," Usopp managed while he tried to concentrate, "Plus, I can't transport while Nami has the shields up."

Sanji wanted to scream at him to work faster, but I wouldn't do any good to stress him out. All he could do right now was keep his fingers crossed, a very human thing to do.

"Got it!" Usopp shouted in triumph, as he pulled the lever to transport. Zoro began to form on the transporter pad before them, held in a defensive position. He was halfway there when the ship was rocked by a photon blast and Zoro's form wavered.

"Shit!" Usopp swore, as he frantically tapped at the screen in front of him. Sanji was desperately reaching out to the half formed Zoro mentally, but with only half a person there wasn't much feeling. Another blast rocked the ship.

"I can't take another hit, Usopp, I have to put up the sheilds, is Zoro onboard?" came Nami's voice over the communicator.

"Just hang on-"

"Fuck!" The blast was lighter this time, buffeted by the shields. Sanji watched as Zoro's half formed image wavered another for a moment before dissipating.

Sanji felt sick. As Zoro's form disappeared, the bond between them went thin. Gone, the connection was gone. Panic gripped the blond as he stared at the spot where Zoro had just been. His mind felt empty, he could distantly feel the worry of his other crew members but it was nothing in the wake of the torrent he was feeling.

He could hear Usopp panicking behind him, but he wasn't paying attention. He only put himself back into what was happening when he became aware of Luffy standing in front of him.

"Are you crying, Sanji?" Luffy asked, staring at his science officer.

Sanji lifted a shaking hand to his face and wiped away a tear, staring at it numbly; vulcans don't cry. "I guess so." He could barely find words, he felt lost and alone.

"What happened?" Luffy wanted to know.

"The transport got disrupted halfway through. I don't know where he went. He's not saved into the computer and he's not on the surface," there were tears in Usopp's eyes as he considered the possibilities, "Oh god, what if I deleted him"

Luffy ignored him and looked at Sanji, "Is he gone?"

All eyes were on Sanji as he closed his eyes and desperately reached out for some sign of anything. Just when he thought there was nothing, he finally felt something; just a tiny bit of presence.

"He's not gone," Sanji let out a shuddering sigh. But then, where the hell was he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so as far as fighting skill goes I would rank Robin above Sanji because she's amazing and scary, but it was more dramatic to send Zoro with the last group.
> 
> Also, the ex machina in this is insane. It really bothers me but I'm too lazy to fix it.
> 
> i wish I had time to write like I did over the summer. School is terrible. Sorry, last month I updated out of order, it's fixed now if you didn't know


	6. Saltwater Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where's Zoro?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my motion fatigue farewell,
> 
> With your ear to a seashell
> 
> You can hear the waves
> 
> In underwater caves
> 
> As if you actually were inside a saltwater room
> 
> -"Saltwater Room" Owl City

"If he's not gone then where is he?" asked Luffy, catching himself as the ship took another hit.

"Usopp to Nami. You can get us out of here," Usopp called, there wasn't any point in waiting around getting shot at.

"Roger that." The ship suddenly jumped to warp speed and they were flying from the planet. They would have to inform Starfleet of this planet as hostile, then they could send in some diplomats to try fixing things or do nothing. Whatever they felt they had to do.

Usopp glanced back up at Luffy, "Well, if he's not here, he's not gone, he's not on the planet, and he's not in the computer, then he must have been teleported into a different dimension. That's my best guess."

Sanji groaned, making a conscious effort to retain his dignity, "Great, this is why people are afraid of using transports. How the hell do we get him back?" Transporter malfunction were not as uncommon as they should have been, annoyingly enough.

"Well," Usopp said, examining the transporter console. "I think I could probably reconfigure the transporter to replicate the circumstances based on the computer recorders."

"Like you did with Vivi?" Luffy asked.

"Not exactly, there are more things to account for here. It's probably going to take a little while."

"Make it so," Luffy announced, "Franky, start the ship repairs."

"Aye, captain."

Sanji took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. Hopefully, this would work.

XxxX

Zoro was surprised to find that he did not materialize onboard the ship. He did, however, materialize on a ship, it just wasn't they type he was anticipating. He seemed to be standing on the deck of an old earth sea vessel, the sort that reminded him of pirates. He blinked out at the vast ocean before him, somewhat distracted by the emptiness he was feeling from the lack of proximity to Sanji. It was all very strange. It wasn't the same as it was when they were captured, this felt deeper than that. For one terrifying moment he couldn't feel anything at all his breath caught in his throat. Then, he felt the tiniest flicker of warmth and that was enough to reassure him. At least it was still there. That was something to hold on to.

The transporter must have malfunctioned, he'd heard lots of stories about this sort of thing happening while he was in Starfleet. He'd probably just been transported to an alternative dimension, his crew was going to have to think of a way back for him because he sure as hell didn't know what to do. Dammit man, he was a weapons officer, not an engineer.

He looked around, there didn't seem to be anyone up on the deck, but he could hear noise coming from the cabin up on the higher deck. He debated whether or not he should do some some snooping around, but there didn't seem to be much to look at up on top and he didn't really want to be caught down below. So, he made his way toward the cabin. Hopefully, what he found inside would be a welcoming sight and not a bunch of bloodthirsty, or a crew of undead pirates. He didn't want to deal with undead pirates, that would really suck. Being undead was unfair in a fight anyway, seriously.

He was halfway toward opening the door when it swung open ahead of him and Luffy charged out, almost running him over. The dark haired boy stopped when he caught sight of Zoro standing there, giving Zoro the chance to see that this Luffy was very much human, lacking the typical bajoran nose ridges. Fuck, he really had been teleported into another dimension. God, this was going to be weird. Although, he supposed that he should be grateful that he wasn't teleported into an area where he couldn't survive, like into the stomach of Luffy. That would be in unpleasant place to be.

Luffy's jaw dropped and he looked from Zoro to something through the doorway and back again. "Zoro, how are you doing this?!" he exclaimed, his gaze inward, away from the swordsman standing on the deck.

Zoro stepped to the side for a better view and saw another version of his crew finishing up a meal with another version of himself. They all gaped at him and he gaped right back at them.

"Ah," Zoro said for a sudden lack of words, "Hello, I come in peace," he said, raising his hands in surrender. He wasn't really sure the proper protocol in this sort of situation, so he supposed he should adopt the first contact policy.

In the back of his mind, he noticed something strange when he talked. Usually, he spoke Japanese, the language he was raised with, but the universal translator would translate so everyone would understand and he would understand them in return. He also knew how to speak English and federation standard, but he preferred his mother tongue. Now, when he spoke it somehow felt different, like the pressure was off inside his ear or something. The translator must have been malfunctioning, there could be any number of causes for that. At least these people all seemed to be speaking Japanese as well. They were also staring at him like he'd fallen out of the sky. To be fair, they weren't so far off from the truth there.

This new Luffy grabbed his arm and dragged him into the room where everyone was eating. "Where did you come from?" the boy asked enthusiastically, apparently not thinking this was as strange as everyone else did.

"Uh," Zoro hesitated, "I had a transporter malfunction and ended up in a different dimension, I think. Where am I exactly?" His eyes were locked on the figure that must have been Brook judging by the hair. Fucking hell, he wished for no undead pirates, dammit!

"You're on the Thousand Sunny! We're on the Grand Line because I'm going to find the One Piece and become the pirate King!" Luffy cackled.

"So, you're all pirates?" Zoro cast his eyes back toward the captain, this sounded like something Luffy would dream up.

"The best pirates in all the world!" he cheered.

"What are things like where you're from?" Robin asked, deciding to become the voice of rationalism.

"Very different," Zoro said staring at each of the crew. It was especially strange to look at Sanji without the bond between them. He felt strangely disconnected and it made his contact aching head spin. It didn't help that this Sanji looked ever so slightly different as well. It was weird to see him without those glittery black betazoid eyes, but it's not like this new blue was an unappealing change. His skin was tinged pink as well, instead of vulcan green.

"Why are you staring at my face?" the new Sanji asked, suspiciously narrowing those pretty pretty blue eyes.

Zoro shook his head, "I just realized how much time I've spent staring at it and now it looks different." It was an honest answer, although he considered that it may have been better to lie in this situation.

"Why the hell would you spend so much time staring at my face?" Sanji asked, his voice raised in concern.

"It's a complicated and annoying story," Zoro said dismissively, "You all look kind of different though, it's really weird."

"What are things like in your universe?" Robin asked again, seeing as she was mostly ignored the first time.

"Well, they-" he stopped himself, having had a thought, "Actually, hang on," he grabbed his PADD and pulled it from his pocket. "I probably have pictures on here." He turned it on, "We run a space ship that flys around the Milky Way searching for adventure. It's all very exciting," he said semi sarcastically.

The group crowded around him as he scrolled down to the bottom of his photo gallery. He was momentarily confused, there were a lot of pictures on this thing that he didn't remember taking.

"What is this thing?" Chopper asked in awe, voicing the thoughts of all the crew, none of them ever having seen a device like this one.

"It's a PADD, I write reports and do stuff on it," Zoro said.

"Like paper?" Robin asked.

"Yeah, but it doesn't other stuff too."

"How does it work?" Usopp asked.

"Uh," Zoro frowned, "I'm sure the Usopp from my universe could answer that better than I can. I'm guessing you don't have anything like this here?"

"Not quite," Robin smiled.

As the crew oohed and ahhed, Zoro selected the first unfamiliar photo he saw, which was actually a video of Sanji reading that it had been taken the day before. For a moment, he hesitated, wondering if everyone would be able to understand the language, but it was taken with the translator on, so he expected that it should be fine.

He clicked play and on the screen Sanji began to talk. He was sitting on a bed, Zoro's bed actually, and he looked like he was very pleased with himself.

The Sanji on the screen gave a little human wave, "Hello, marimo, although I'm only assuming it's you because I have no idea who might have hacked into your personal device. You're probably wondering why I took so may videos on your PADD, or maybe how I got your password to begin with. Well, the answer to the first question is; because I'm bored right now, and the second is because I know all and see all.

"You might also be wondering where you are, because obviously you aren't in your room. That's because you are currently in the med bay being treated by Chopper for those horrible burns you got early today. You know, the ones that made me totally abandon Nami mid conversation? Yeah, you're going to pay for that, bastard. Anyway, while Chopper is fixing your ugly mug, I'm going to take this baby on a little adventure. Oh, and you should probably work harder on you shields, as nice as it is that you're trying to shield your pain, it's still pretty intense. So, this is how I'm distracting myself from that and it's you're fault for saying I couldn't get into your room in the first place. You brought this upon yourself, idiot. Anyway, I'm rambling, I'll see you when I see you. Live long and prosper, Sanji out," Sanji finished off with a snicker and the vulcan salute.

Zoro grit his teeth. That guy.

"He's got pointed ears like an elf," Usopp laughed.

"That's from his green blooded vulcan mother," Zoro nodded.

"And the black eyes?" Robin asked.

"Betazoid dad."

"What did he mean shields?" Sanji asked, still absorbed in giving his double on the screen a sideways glance.

"He's telepathic and empathic," Zoro said, not bothering to explain their complicated situation. It would probably come off as weird.

"So, he can like read minds and is super emotion sensitive?" Sanji asked, frowning.

"He can't read minds without a mind meld," Zoro said, "but he can always feel other people's emotions."

"Why did he stop mid conversation with Nami to help you?" The blond's frown deepened, as if the thought alone made him feel guilty.

"Because I'm super special," Zoro rolled his eyes, avoiding the question.

Zoro slid the video to the side and looked at the second one. This one appeared to be about Robin. He clicked it.

"And here we have the beautiful Miss Robin," came Sanji's voice from out off the screen. Robin was on her PADD, sipping something from a cup, on the observation deck.

"What is it you are doing again, Mister cook?" she asked.

"Documenting everyone, so that the marimo never ever forgets about us," he laughed, "Also, breaking into his personal property to prove a point."

Robin gave him a smiled, "How very sweet of you."

"Thank you, Robin! Do you have any words of wisdom for our mossy friend?"

"Mister commander," Robin looked directly at the camera, "I suggest you be grateful, this one is a keeper," she gave a sly smile as Sanji made an unhappy sound in the background. And the video ended.

"What kind of advice was that?" the other Zoro asked.

"Advice I will not be following," said the Zoro holding the PADD with a scowl.

"Is she a Vulcan too?" Robin asked, looking at the pointed ears curiously.

"Nah," Zoro shook his head, "She's one of the sneaky romulans who looks like a vulcan, I'm ninety nine percent sure that she was a spy for the romulan high command. The romulans hate everyone."

"Does she hate everyone?"

"I hope not," Zoro shrugged, "but she's a romulan, so you never can tell."

The next video was of Usopp, who looked very busy fixing the pipe that had blasted Zoro in the face.

"Here we have a wild Usopp in its natural habitat. Watch it move, so graceful, so majestic," said Sanji's voice in a lifted documentary voice.

"Sanji, what are you doing here?" Usopp looked unimpressed with his commentary.

"Testing my filmography skills, any words of advice for Zoro?"

"Uh, good luck on getting your face fixed?"

"Wonderful, thank you."

Zoro paused the video because the crew was busy laughing at Usopp's face.

"What the hell is wrong with his forehead?" Usopp managed to sputter out.

"He's a klingon," Zoro tried to explain, "Forehead ridges are a sign of greatness or something. They're very battle oriented, so I think they probably smack heads or they did in the distant past."

"Usopp is part of a battle oriented race?" the other Zoro snorted, obviously not buying it.

"Yeah, but he was a terrible klingon so he got kicked out." Zoro pressed play again.

Franky was around the corner in engineering and had apparently heard the exchange. "I have some words for Zoro-bro!" Franky announced, "First of all, Franky is the best! And second, don't break anymore parts of my ship!"

Sanji turned the corner, bringing Franky into view, "Did he break something when he got burned?"

"No, but it was for future reference. The same goes for you." He jabbed a finger toward Sanji.

Sanji gave a thumbs up, "Thanks."

"Franky didn't look any different," chopper commented.

"Not really, he's human but he's a cyborg, so I guess nothing's really changed," Zoro shrugged.

"I'm kind of disappointed," Franky said, "Everyone else looks cool..."

The next video was of Brook, "Hey Brook, I'm making a video for the marimo. Any words of advice?"

Brook grinned widely, "Why have a video of me when you could have a video of Nami's-"

"Nope!" The video cut off there.

"Wait, wait!" came a chorus of shouts.

"He looks like a person!" Luffy said in awe, looking from the skeleton to the screen.

"Yeah, that's probably the biggest difference. He's a trill in my universe, so he has this big worm slug thing in his stomach with a bunch of past lives. In this current life he's a musician," Zoro explained.

"Is that healthy?" Chopper asked in concern. It certainly didn't sound healthy.

"Yeah," Zoro have a half nod half shrug, "I mean, I think it is. His species coevolved for this, so it seems mutually beneficial. Trills go through a lot of training stuff before they can get a symbiont. It's a high honor to be a carrier."

The next video had Nami was sitting at the helm looking at the camera, "My word of advice to Zoro is that he should give all of his money to me all the time." She thought for a second before giving a sly smile, "Hey, Sanji, you wouldn't know how to make him give me more money, would you? Any vulcan hypnotic dances or something."

Sanji gave a nervous laugh, "Unfortunately not, my dear. The vulcans aren't exactly know for their dance skills, I'm pretty sure that's a display of emotion."

"The betazoids might be."

"Not that I'm aware, but that would be a grievous abuse of my abilities," another nervous titter.

"That's a shame," Nami sighed, "Well, then I guess that's it. My advice to you" she pointed to Sanji, "is that you should make up a hypnotic dance to transfix your enemies, like an orion woman. It works for them."

"You know, it just occurred to me," Sanji said rather seriously, "I'm sure there's something like that in Zoro's favorite holodeck program."

Nami looked confused, "What, the weird fighting one?"

"No, no, my dear, Vulcan Love Slave."

The video ended with the sound of Nami's laughter.

"Vulcan Love Slave?" this new Sanji said with a lifted eyebrow.

"It's not my favorite program," Zoro glared at him with much menace.

"Then why would he say it?"

"Because he thinks he's funny. When quite clearly he is not."

"He made Nami laugh."

"Yeah, well, what does Nami know? Nothing, that's what."

"Why's she so pink and stuff?" Nami cut in, pointing at her double.

"She's part money grubbing ferengi," Zoro scowled, "You should see a full blooded ferengi, they're pretty hideous."

The next video was in the holodeck. Luffy seemed to be running the pirate program, which was very fitting right now, although it appeared to be in the middle of a storm.

"Luffy!" Sanji shouted over the raging storm.

"Ahoy, Sanji! What's up?!" the captain shouted from behind the wooden wheel.

"Do you have any advice for-"

"What!?"

"I said, do you have any advice for-"

"Sanji I can't hear you!"

"Computer-" Sanji was cut off as a huge waver swept over the side of the ship, dragging the blond and PADD from the boat and into the sea.

"Man overboard!" Luffy shouted distantly.

The PADD was submerged and there were dark shapes moving in the water. "Computer, pause program!" Sanji shouted. Everything stopped.

"Aw, Sanji, why did you do that?" Luffy wined.

"What the hell are these things?" Sanji asked, poking at the fishlike thing in the water next to him. It was about as long as him and had multiple rows of sharp teeth.

"You've never seen a shark before?" Luffy asked.

"No, where are they from?"

"Earth, they make the program more dangerous."

"Do you at least have the safety on?"

"No," Luffy laughed.

"Fuck this. Computer, end program!" The computer ended and Sanji was suddenly dry and stomping toward the exit.

"Wait, why did you come in here?" Luffy asked.

"Forget it, I'm done." The video ended on an angry shot of Sanji's face.

"What was he?" asked Luffy, indicating himself.

"Bajoran."

"How does the holodeck work?" asked Franky.

"Photons and force fields," Zoro said automatically.

"What?"

"That's just what I've been told."

The next thing was actually a picture of Sanji lifting the PADD to make sure that things were all good in the med bay. Zoro could see Chopper and himself in there and he could see the top of Sanji's head where he was checking.

The next video was of Chopper as he busily hustled around the med bay. "Sanji, I'm trying to do my job," the little doctor said as he filled a hypospray.

"Well, you patient looks half fine already." Sanji sifted the PADD over to Zoro, who laid under a dermal regenerator. His face looked mostly healed, but it looked like he had a large amount of scarring on one side of his face. "What's one word of advice you could give Zoro?"

"Uh, stop taking the safety off the holodeck programs. Anyway, Sanji, can you monitor him for a minute, I have to get something from the greenhouse."

"Yeah, go on."

The camera was still on Zoro, who was glaring at the device, although he didn't look all there and Zoro didn't actually remember this happening.

"That's my PADD," he said in a slightly slurred voice.

"Yep, I've been taking it on a trip because you neglect the camera feature," Sanji said lightly.

"You neglect your face," Zoro spat back.

"Ouch, I might need to put some ice in the burn. Oops, too soon?" Sanji snickered.

"Ah, shuddup. Don't make me look at your stupid face right now, I'm healing and it's not good for me."

"Fine, although it hurts me ever so much, I'll leave when Chopper comes back. That is, if you answer my one question."

"What question?"

"If you could give yourself a word of advice, what would it be?"

Zoro made a face like he was thinking very hard, "Punch this blond bimbo in the face, that's my advice," he finally said.

"I don't like that advice. I'll project that pain all over you," the blond threatened.

"Do it, it would be totally worth it."

"You're lucky I'm not as mean as I could be, I could reach over and poke your burns."

"Now you have to answer a question."

"What question is that?"

"If Nami and I were in mortal danger and you could only save one of us, who would you save?"

Sanji hummed, "That's a tough question to answer. On one hand I could save you and be overwhelmed in guilt, and on the other I could save Nami and risk going literally insane."

"Well, I think the answer is obvious."

"You're right, I'd save Nami."

"Aw, what?"

"Yeah, sorry, it's always ladies first."

"What if it turned out that Nami could escape on her own by the time you got to her."

"Then I'd probably feel pretty guilty before I went insane, but it would still be worth it to make sure Nami was okay."

Zoro made a face, "You're the worst space husband ever, you don't even come to my aid when I need you."

"Sorry, marimo, it's just how the world works," Sanji shrugged.

"You suck."

"Oh, come on, don't be like that. Jealously is a perfectly natural response when associating with someone like me."

Zoro reached out a hand and put it on Sanji's chest. "What are you-?" Sanji started, he was cut off as Zoro shoved him from his chair and the video cut off.

"What was that?" the other Zoro asked.

"I don't know," Zoro said, confused himself for many reasons, "I really don't remember it happening. But I guess I know why he kicked me on my way out of sick bay."

"Why the hell did you call him your 'space husband'?"

"That's what Nami calls us."

"Why?"

"Because she's stupid."

"Don't call Nami-swan stupid!"

"Shut up!"

The final video was of Sanji leaning against a window as stars zoomed by, looking annoyed. "And this concludes out tour, I hope you found it inspirational that all these people care enough to care about you. Except me, obviously, I'm just here because it would probably cause me irreparable damage psychologically to get rid of you. So, yeah, that's about it. Now, if I kick your ass later you'll know why, so watch it. Oh, and my advice to you is that you should not jeopardize my sanity by putting yourself into danger. And that might make I sound like I care about your wellbeing, but I totally don't, so shut up." He gave a soft smile and a human wave, then the video series was over.

"So, I guess that's it," Zoro shrugged.

"Your life involves too much of his guy," the other Zoro jabbed a finger at Sanji.

"You have no idea," Zoro sighed.

XxxX

"Okay," Usopp said from deep within the wiring of the transporter, "I think I've got an idea. If I can make a portable transporter, get it one him, and plug in the coordinates with the same disruptions as when he was being beamed on board, then maybe we can get him back."

"How will we get it on him?" Luffy asked.

"We'll have to send someone through, which means I guess I need to configure two portable transporters and a test one. Whose going to go?" Usopp asked, although the answer was obvious.

"I'll go," Sanji said with a sigh.

"Okay then, the test won't be hard to configure." He had a small stock of portable transporters and for a test he would only have to disrupt it and tell it only to send itself. He fiddled with the thing for a few minutes before he set it on the transporter pad and sent it away. A few seconds later it came back still in tack.

"Awesome. These," he held up the two transporters, "Will take more time." He had to make sure they had all the proper safety measures in check, traveling across universes was tricky business.

It took him about an hour to get them both done during which time Sanji's emotional pain settled out into a dull ache. It was manageable, but still uncomfortable.

When everything was ready, Sanji had the transporter placed on his person and stepped onto the pad. He had no idea what sort of place he would be going to, but he intended to get Zoro back. Dead or alive, but hopefully alive.

"Good luck, Sanji," Luffy said, giving a little salute.

Sanji nodded mutely as Usopp pressed down on the transport button.

XxxX

"What's that supposed to mean?" the other Sanji asked, "'You have no idea.'" he made air quotes, "You can't just say stuff like that without expecting us to question it."

Zoro frowned, "Well-" he halted mid sentence, staring at the door. Sanji was out there, he could feel it. His Sanji, not this other one. His mind reached out and connected with the mind that was joined with his, the force of the reaction made him take in a breath. How had the blond gotten there? Not that he was complaining, but he still wanted to know. Probably some technical magic on behalf of the crew. They were amazing after all.

"What?" Luffy asked excitedly, noticing Zoro strange reaction.

Footsteps could be head outside and the other crew followed Zoro's gaze to the door. Said door swung open as Sanji made his entrance, marching inside. Zoro opened his mouth to say something, but his words were lost to the avalanche of emotion that was radiating from Sanji.

The vulcan-betazoid's eyes did not stray from Zoro's face. He walked with purpose, his expression determined. He didn't even seem to notice the other people in the room who were, strangely enough, their doppelgängers. Instead, he walked right up and wrapped his arms around Zoro's neck and attempted to hug the stuffing out of him.

Zoro blinked, that wasn't what he was expecting. He was anticipating that Sanji would either kick him in the balls or pull him right into a mind meld. This was weird, although it soothed the ache that the separation had caused.

The hug was ever so slightly too close for a platonic, manly relationship, but they were both a little too distracted to notice. Zoro was the most aware of how this must look and after a moment he glanced back at the doppelgänger crew, who were in varied levels of shock and or horror upon witnessing this affectionate sight.

"Uh, he's usually not like this," Zoro said absently. It was strange; under normal circumstances he would probably have punched Sanji in the face for something like this, but he couldn't bring himself to move. He imagined that it was probably due to the projection of Sanji's emotional state on him, but he honestly wouldn't be surprised if it was his own emotion keeping him there.

"What the hell is wrong with him?" the other Zoro asked.

"It's complicated and awkward," Zoro winced.

"Explain," demanded the other Sanji, "and stop touching me," he whined.

"Alright, fine," Zoro moved to detach the blond vulcan and was met with some resistance as Sanji muttered something in a different language; it sounded like Klingon. "Aw, fuck the translator's not working," he muttered. He switched to the Federation standard language. "The translator isn't working and you're freaking the other us out by touching me. The other you told me to stop touching you."

Sanji let up at that but not by much, "Don't tell me what to do," he huffed, "And don't let me tell you what to do. I mean, do listen to me but- Yeah, you get it."

Now that he had pulled back a little, Zoro could get a better picture of Sanji's mental state. Zoro put his hands on Sanji's shoulders and got a better hold on his attention. His eyes looked fuller than usual, internally he was leaking emotions, both his and those of the other people in the room. Everything about him was just a little off, "Are you okay?" Zoro asked in genuine concern.

"I was reaching too-" he faltered, "too far. Usopp couldn't find you on the surface and you weren't saved on the computer. We thought you were gone," he said, raking a hand through his hair in frustrated manner.

Zoro pulled his arm back from his nervous tugging and tried to send as much reassurance through the bond as possible, but it still felt rather lacking. He would have suggested mind melding if they weren't in the same situation was they were in now. But they had a captivated audience right now so, instead he just dragged out a chair and made the science officer sit down. Once the betazoid was seated, Zoro didn't move away, he stood behind Sanji's chair, hands heavily on his shoulders. Sanji placed one hand over Zoro's to sooth the ache for contact and ignoring any formal social concerns the action might invoke. The tingling sensation made it feel like half a kiss.

Zoro made a face but didn't pull back, instead he forced himself to face their stunned audience. "Okay, I guess I should explain," he sighed, "So, a while ago we were on a planet full of telepaths and one attacked this pointy eared freak," he grabbed the tip of Sanji's ear, causing him to swear in Klingon, "And he had to attach himself to something so that he couldn't be taken over, so he mind melded with me, which is like squishing two brains into the same space, it's super weird. And when it was all good again, we found out that, oh hey, the cook went a little too far. He accidentally set up a mating bond, which isn't as bad as it sounds. It just means that we can sense each other empathically and have telepathic conversations and stuff." As Zoro finished his rant there was a moment of shocked silence, so he took it as an invitation to continue, "So, when I disappeared from our universe, the bond went thin and they couldn't find me. Sanji reached out too far and his shields are all messed up and now he's all emotionally stressed and physical contact makes it better, so yeah."

"Is this why I called you space husbands?" Nami asked, the beginnings of a smile on her face.

"Yes, that's really annoying by the way. There's defiantly nothing romantic about this," Zoro grumbled just as Sanji leaned his head against his arm, increasing contact.

Nami raised an eyebrow, "Defianly not."

"Shut up."

"Don't tell Nami-swan to shut up," said the other Sanji somewhat distractedly.

"This is so creepy," the other Zoro said looking highly uncomfortable.

"What are they saying?" Sanji asked lazily.

"What? Japanese isn't stored somewhere in that big Vulcan head of yours?" Zoro scoffed.

"Well, it's not like it's a major universal language," Sanji rolled his eyes.

"I'm disappointed in you. As my space husband you should take more interest in my cultural heritage."

"Yeah, I'll learn Japanese and you can learn Klingon, Vulcan, and Betazoid."

"Fine, I see your point. They're just pointing out how creepy this situation is." Zoro had started to forget how strange the situation was.

"Ah, that I can understand," Sanji nodded, "Speaking of understanding, you should ask if anyone can speak French, that's an earth language I know."

"Why the hell did you learn French?"

"I was bored and France is pretty."

"Whatever," Zoro turned back to the other crew, "I've been told to ask if anyone can speak French."

"I speak French," said the other Sanji.

"Awesome, tell me if he," the first Sanji said, pointing to Zoro, "Says anything bad about me."

"Got it," Sanji two said, giving a thumbs up, "So, seriously, is this as horrible as it sounds?"

"Honestly? It's actually really nice. My emotions are way out of control, so this unemotional idiot drags me back down."

"But, it seems too close." the other Sanji made a terrible face.

"I find myself caring less and less about that." Sanji breathed.

"Oh god, that's not what I want to hear." he grimaced.

Sanji one smiled at that, finding it very amusing distressing his double, "How much does it bother you?"

"A lot."

"What if I said that Zoro has a very handsome face." Sanji was liking this idea more and more.

"Your said my name," Zoro said, momentarily breaking away from the conversation he was having with the rest of the crew, "I don't like both of you talking about me. Only bad things can happen."

"Sh, it'll be fine," Sanji said a little too sweetly, making Zoro doubt his sincerity. To put aside the absurd though, Sanji rubbed his thumb lightly over the skin of Zoro's hand in a soothing motion.

"Please don't do that." the other Sanji pleaded.

"What if I said that I want to run my hands through his mossy hair and run my tongue over his perfect abs." Sanji found this incredibly amusing.

Sanji two put his hands over his ears, "Stop, I'm not talking to you anymore!"

As the two Sanji's argued with each other, everyone else watched them in interest.

"Do you think of they touch a paradox will destroy the world?" Usopp asked nervously.

"Nah," Zoro said, "That's never happened to any other instances of dimension traveling people, so I don't think it'll happen."

"Your confidence is reassuring," Robin chuckled.

"Glad to put your mind at ease."

"Do you sword fight in your universe?" the other Zoro asked.

The first Zoro nodded, "Yes, I have three Katanas specially made to deflect phaser blasts."

"I'm going to assume that's a gun?" the other Zoro gave him an uncertain look.

"Yeah, it's a gun. I with I had them now, I'd love to fight against myself. Although, my swords would probably slices through yours," Zoro reasoned. That wouldn't make the fight very fair.

"I could lend you one of mind to fight with."

Something about that notion rubbed Zoro the wrong way and he could see the discomfort of his double's face as well. "No, that's alright."

"Arm wrestling!" Luffy exclaimed, "You two should arm wrestle."

"That's not really fair," the first officer said, "I have alien blood in me, I'm stronger than the average human from a biological point of view."

"I think I'll be fine," the doppelgänger grinned wildly.

"Let's do it!" Luffy whooped.

"This guy can't be me! We are nothing alike!" the pirate Sanji shouted to the rest of the rest of the group, interrupting the conversation.

"What did you do to him?" Zoro asked, turning to Sanji for answers.

"Ah, nothing." Sanji grinned impishly.

"You shouldn't torment yourself. That's like the physical embodiment of self hatred," Zoro scolded mockingly.

"Psh, whatever."

"I'm serious, that can't be healthy behavior."

"Fine," Sanji sighed, tilting his head back to rest against Zoro's chest as he looked up to his face, "But, if I can't torment myself can I still torment you?"

"How would you do that?"

"Same way I did with him, showering you with affections."

"What do you-?"

Oh, strong handsome weapons officer, please take me, a frail science officer, into your tender embrace. I want to-" Sanji began dramatically.

Zoro could see this was going nowhere good fast, "Nope! Stop it! No more of that," he clamped a had over Sanji's mouth, trying to end the melodramatic mush he was spewing forth, but the rant continued in his head.

'I want to be lifted off my feet like a young maid and kissed passionately on the mouth. Then we can dance forever in the-'

"Stop! What the fuck is wrong with you today!?" Zoro moved back, ending the contact between himself and the blond, who turned in the chair to watch him.

"I'm adorable, I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're the worst."

"I'll stop on one condition," an evil smile was creeping up Sanji's face.

"I shudder to think of what that might be," Zoro said suspiciously.

"One kiss is all I ask," Sanji said innocently.

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"But seriously?"

"Yes!"

"Are you trying to traumatize this other crew?"

"Maybe. Either way, it's fun, you should try it."

"Kissing you?"

"Yes."

"In the human way?"

"Yes, geez, you ask too many stupid questions," Sanji huffed impatiently.

"Shut up, is there anywhere specific I have to kiss you?"

Sanji made an indication to his face, "Somewhere in this vacuity."

"I don't want to do that."

"Fine then," Sanji took a deep breath, ready to carry on with his annoying rambling.

Zoro groaned, holding his head, "God dammit, fine. If you want to do it that way." He retook the step that he had retreated, grabbed Sanji's face with both hands and kissed him squarely on the mouth. The contact was very brief and Zoro immediately turned to the rest of the group, who were once again gawking at them. "Arm wrestling! Let's do this!"

"B-but-" the other Sanji stammered.

"No!"

"You-" started Nami.

"Shut up! We are not acknowledging this, so stop trying."

Sanji was cackling like an evil villain in the background and Zoro was using all his efforts not to turn around and punch him in the face with the intent to break his nose. Instead, he took a seat in one of the open chairs and waited for the other him to take the one across from it. After a moments pause, both Zoro's were at the table, hands clasped, read to test their strength.

"If you don't win, I won't let you kiss me ever again," Sanji snickered.

"I didn't want to kiss you two seconds ago and I won't want to in the future."

"I was just saying."

"Well, now you should just shut up."

"Ready?" asked Luffy, hand in the air like he was ready to start off a race of some kind. The Zoro's locked eyes, both determined not to hold back. "Go!" Luffy swiped his hand though the air and the competition began.

Both marimos grappled with each other, muscles straining, desperately trying to gain an inch or two. Initially they seemed to be at an impasse, neither able to gain any groun. Everyone was cheering, when the other Zoro's hand was pushed back only a hair. There was a little gasp and the cheering came louder, swelling as the other Zoro's arm was steadily lowered. He gave it all his might, straining for about a minute before his hand was pushed down against the table. Zoro the space alien had won.

Sanji was laughing like an idiot and everyone else was cheering. Zoro held out his hand to his other self.

"The alien genes carried me though," he said.

His double smirked, "I'll get you next time."

"Thanks what you think," Zoro smirked back.

"Alright, mister manly man, if you're finished off demonstrating your masculinity, have the transporter whenever you're ready," Sanji said offering up the device.

Zoro nodded, "I guess we should go back at some point." He turned to the group, "Hey, it was nice meeting all of you, but now that I've crushed the other version of myself, I think it's time to go."

"Aw, do you have to go?" Luffy whined.

"Yeah, we have a crew to get back to. They probably think I'm dead right now," Zoro sighed.

"Then you should probably get back," Robin nodded.

"Bye!" waved Luffy.

"Live long and prosper," said Sanji, holding his hand up in the Vulcan ta'al.

"Live long and prosper," repeated Zoro in Japanese and he tapped the transporter, sending himself back to his own universe. Not that he didn't like the idea of being a pirate, but he liked flying around in a spaceship better.

XxxX

A/N: I have this dimension transporting fantasy every time I read or write a fanfiction, I'm so glad if finally got to write it down. I just wish I could do it for every story.

Ah, Vulcan Love Slave. I love Quark and ds9.

Thanks to DarkSunrise19 for determining the end to that arm wrestling match XD

It's hard to write about one piece in the actual universe when you've watched so like none of it =_= what am I doing?

I'm currently sitting around in an observatory waiting for the telescope to give a image. It literally takes an hour.

Thanks.


	7. Arabella

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arabella's got a 70's head  
> But she's a modern lover  
> It's an exploration, she's made of outer space  
> And her lips are like the galaxy's edge  
> And her kiss the colour of a constellation falling into place
> 
> -"Arabella" Arctic Monkeys

Zoro was engulfed in a huge and very obnoxious hug upon his return. Everyone was glad to have him back, nearly as glad as Sanji.

The decision was made to put the ship on autopilot for the night to give everyone a good nights sleep after a day of excitement. Everyone went off toward their own rooms, it was late and their day had been exhausting. But as Zoro lay down for sleep, he found that he could not find unconsciousness and for him that was a very abnormal thing. There was a nagging at the back of his head, something was keeping him awake.

'Zoro,' came Sanji's cool voice through his head, startling him slightly.

'What?' he responded, not upset at the interruption.

'You can't sleep," Sanji felt his heavy tiredness.

'Um, no.' Zoro responded, Sanji himself was emanating a strange feeling. Zoro wasn't quite sure how he would place it, it felt sort of surreal and slightly warm.

'Hang on.' A few moments later the door to his quarters opened, the password having been successfully typed in, and Sanji walked in. Zoro was curious to see what exactly he intended to do, so he sat up.

Sanji didn't try to explain himself, he just shoved Zoro over and laid down next to him. "Don't do that again," he said out loud in order to emphasize his point, thinking of the swordsman's vanishing act.

"I'll try not to," Zoro said lazily. It was weird how not weird this felt. He felt completely at ease, better than when they had been separated and better than before he had left. He wondered if this was due to the bond or if they'd just become closer in general, he supposed that it didn't really matter either way.

"Good," Sanji said, stretching out his hand. He left plenty of time for Zoro to object, but the weapons officer made no move to do so as the blond placed his fingers over Zoro's psi points. The contact felt warm and welcome. This meld felt different then what they usually did, maybe because this one was without any purpose. Usually, there was a task to be done and there wasn't so much time to focus on simply the feel of it. Had it always been so nice?

It was like warm, soft caramel; sweet and thick. They were blurry, all sensation, no physical form. They stayed that way for a long while, just savoring the feeling of the closeness after the brief separation they had been through.

When Sanji finally ended the meld, they were both sleepy. In his last effort before succumbing to slumber, Zoro pressed their fingers together, it was nothing when compared to the closeness of a meld, but it was more for carrying meaning than for physical feeling. Sanji gave Zoro a sleepy smile and that was what Zoro fell asleep to. It could be worse, he supposed.

XxxX

Sanji was agitated, he had been for the last few days. He was restless and his mood was generally tense. Everyone seemed a little anxious, it had been over a week since anything interesting had happened and things were getting boring, but Sanji was so high strung that once he had even snapped at Nami. She had been poking a bit of fun at him. It was nothing particularly cruel, but Sanji's face shifted into irritation and he told her to fuck off. Zoro and Usopp, who were the only other crew members present, gaped at him as he stomped out of the room. Thereafter ,Sanji closed himself off for the rest of the day.

It was more than enough to make everyone wonder about him. Even worse, he hadn't been eating for the past few days, something that Zoro noticed above anyone else, although the blond didn't seem to get hungry.

The two of them were back to sleeping in their own quarters, although Zoro somewhat wished that they had stayed in the same room. It had been so much more comfortable when they were together. However, that was converging dangerously on the edge of romantic, so it was to be avoided. He felt like they were always on the edge of romance now, they were standing on the very edge of a huge cliff and both were determined not to fall first. Their relationship was developing into just that; a relationship. They didn't talk about it, they just wandered around in the murkiness of their uncertain dynamic. The transition was new and odd, but they took it in stride.

Technically, Sanji had made the first move by drunkenly kissing him, but that was a little easy to ignore, at least for Zoro, because Vulcan kissing wasn't something he usually did in his relationships. And the human kiss they had shared only happened because Sanji was an idiot, so that didn't count.

Three days after Sanji's outburst toward Nami, Zoro took a seat beside the blond in the dining room. Nami, Usopp, and Chopper were also present at the moment. Luffy was hosting a springball tournament in the holodeck, springball being an intense and at times very aggressive bajoran sport. From what Zoro knew, right now it was Luffy versus Brook and Robin versus Franky. The green haired man expected that Luffy and Robin would be the victors of those battles, but who would win in the end he could only guess at.

At the moment, Usopp was telling some far fetched tail about how he had singlehandedly taken down a borg cube using just using the power of his mind. Chopper was inthralled with this story and even Nami seemed to be half interested to find out what would happen next. Zoro was focused on something more disturbing.

When he looked over to Sanji, who was stewing in a black mood, he noticed that he was playing with his food. He had made a plate of gakh, a dish that Zoro knew reminded him of being back at the Baratie. Gakh was a Klingon dish made from still living serpent worms. There were not many non-klingons who could stomach it. Zoro could eat it, it really wasn't bad, it made him wonder if he had some klingon blood in him somewhere. Then there were some klingons who got sick from eating gakh like Usopp, who could barely even look at the squirming dish.

Sanji would usually slurp down the worms and feel in a better mood for it the rest of the day. Now he was picking up the worms and letting them crawl off of his fork, back onto the plate. He was making no move to eat them.

Zoro was a little disconcerted at this revelation, he thought it best to bring up internally, rather than drawing it into attention. 'You aren't eating,' Zoro though lightly, trying to let only a little of his concern leak through.

Sanji's irritation sparked with more force than usual. 'So, what?'

'So, you're being a little weird, don't you think?' Zoro continued to eat his own food like nothing was happening.

'I hadn't noticed.'

'What's wrong?' It seemed about time to ask.

'Oh, what, are you my counsellor now?' The sarcasm was so heavy it was dripping.

'No, I'm just the person who shares your head space, wondering what the hell has been going on with you.'

'Nothing has been going on.'

'That's a flat out lie.'

'Vulcans don't lie,' Sanji insisted.

'You're only half Vulcan.'

'The logic still applies.'

'You're bending your fork,' Zoro pointed out. Sanji's fork was at a ninety degree angle.

Sanji stood so quickly that he knocked his chair back as he slammed down his bent fork. "How about you just leave me alone!" he shouted, drawing everyone's attention as he picked up his plate and dumped it over Zoro's head. No one said anything as he stomped out.

Zoro sat there, stunned, worms crawling through his hair.

"What the hell did you do?" Nami asked, only a little shocked given Sanji's recent behavior.

"Nothing," Zoro sulked.

"I'm starting to think there's something medically wrong with him," Chopper frowned, glancing toward the door as if he could examine Sanji right there.

"Do you want me to get him to come to the med bay?" Zoro asked, wondering the same thing.

"Can you do that?" Usopp asked.

"I can try," Zoro shrugged, "It'll probably take a lot of kicking and screaming, but I'll tell you when he's ready."

He went to stand, but Nami stopped him, "Take those worms out of your hair," she told him, speaking as if he were a child.

Once Zoro was done displacing the worms from his hair, he went after Sanji. He was easy to find, all he had to do was ask the computer where he was, also Sanji wasn't doing a very good job of concealing his emotions.

Anger still hung in the air when Zoro cornered him in his little science lab.

"Did you not just see me storm away from you?" Sanji seethed, aggressively flipping through a book. He tore through it so violently that he ripped a page and through the thing across the room in frustration.

Zoro watched on, perplexed at the over the top behavior, "What the fuck is your problem?"

"There is no problem!" Sanji shouted, looking like h might start throwing more things. "What's your problem?"

"My problem," Zoro said, walking farther into the room, "is that you're being really fuckind weird. Chopper wants you to report to the med bay, he's worried that here might be something physically wrong with you."

"There's nothing wrong with me!" Sanji protested angrily.

Zoro scoffed, "I can tell from just how much you're shouting at me!" he shouted back.

"Fuck you, I'm not going down there!"

"Yes, you are. Chopper wants you down there and I said that I'd take you there."

"I don't care!"

"Don't make me force you," Zoro threatened.

"Just fucking try it," Sanji did not appear afraid.

Zoro stepped toward Sanji, who held his ground. Zoro paused a few seconds before he lunged forward. He only just managed to catch Sanji by the waist. They were forced to the ground, Zoro trying his best to drag Sanji toward sick bay. Sanji was being extremely difficult, he even tried to bite Zoro's face to get him to leave off and when it was starting to look like Zoro might win this fight he actually nerve pinched him. Zoro jerked when the Sanji squeezed the nerve, stunned that Sanji would use that technique and because he had literally been stunned; immediately afterward he was unconscious.

He wasn't sure how long he was out, but it couldn't have been too long. He had been moved, now he was laying on his back, not his side. Sanji was surprisingly still there, his face hovering over Zoro's. He looked like he was feeling guilty.

"I'm sorry," he said when Zoro was fully conscious. His guilt washed over Zoro in a wave. "I didn't mean to-" Sanji tried but then broke off, "I'll go to sick bay." He bowed his head, not meeting Zoro's curious gaze.

When Zoro had recovered enough, Sanji stood, helping Zoro to his feet with a hand of aid.

Sanji followed along rather despondently to sick bay after that. "Are you going to need me to hold your hand?" Zoro asked sarcastically as the half Vulcan lagged behind.

Sanji didn't bother responding, he just kept walking, lips sealed. Zoro thought it best not to press him, not wishing to invoke anymore anger.

Upon seeing them, Chopper ushered the two into sick bay and had Sanji start on some tests. Zoro stayed for the whole thing, if only because every so often Sanji would get irrationally angry again and try to leave.

In the end, Chopper sat them down and read the results of all the testing, a frustrated expression on his face. "I'm sorry, Sanji, I just can't figure out what's wrong with you. Your hormones are all out of whack, but there's no apparent cause I can detect."

Sanji's brow furrowed, "There has to be something."

"Nothing I know of," Chopper shook his head and shrugged, "Maybe it's a vulcan thing, that's the only thing I can figure. I don't know much about Vulcan biology."

Sanji thought hard for a moment, trying to think of all his knowledge on his Vulcan heritage and suddenly the answer seemed so blindingly obvious that he wanted to kick himself. He went pale. Panic colored his form, visibly and internally.

"What?" Zoro asked, a hint of concern at the fullness of Sanji's panic.

Sanji shook his head slowly head brought a hand up to cover his face, panic fading to humiliation.

"Do you know what's wrong?" Chopper asked.

"It is... difficult to speak of," Sanji forced himself to say.

"Why?"

"Because reasons," he sighed uncomfortably, "It makes me uncomfortable, and the Vulcans don't like to talk about it."

"What is it?" Chopper pressed.

"I believe it is the pon farr," Sanji grit out, his face flushing an embarrassed green.

"The pon what?" Zoro asked, confused, but Chopper at least partially understood, his eyes widened considerably.

"Oh," Chopper said rather bluntly, looking a little nervous, "I don't know much about how to deal with the pon farr, the vulcans are tight lipped about it."

"I'll be fine, I'll meditate through it." Sanji said, not making eye contact.

"Wait, what's going on?" Zoro asked, wanting to catch up.

Sanji just made another unhappy sound.

"You have to tell him, Sanji, it's going to affect him too, so you say it or I will," Chopper scolded him.

"Fine," Sanji said with an exaggerated sigh, "The pon farr is basically the vulcan equivalent of going into heat."

Zoro grimaced, "Woah, okay, let's back up here. I didn't realize that Vulcans were like cats."

"Shut up," Sanji hissed, "It's a normal vulcan biological function. Biology and shit, it's not my fault."

Zoro didn't appear convinced, "And you said this is going to affect me too?"

Sanji shifted uncomfortably, "Our brains have a telepathic link, idiot, of course you'll be affected."

"So, I'll want to have sex with you?"

The blond made a indignant sound, "If you don't want to have sex with me now, then you won't want to have sex with me then. You'll just want to have sex, or at least that's how I understand it." Sanji had never gone through the pon farr, having not been over age yet, and to think this would happen once every seven years.

"If Sanji doesn't have sex within the pon farr, he will die," Chopper said with great concern.

"Are you telling me I have to have sex with him?" Zoro asked with a grimace.

"No!" Sanji exclaimed hurriedly, "There are other ways to resolve the Pon Farr; through meditation for example. I don't want to force anyone to have sex with me."

"But that would be difficult for even a full Vulcan, let alone a half betazoid," Chopper objected.

"It's my only choice," Sanji said in a tightlipped manner.

"Okay, so explain to me exactly what is going to happen," Zoro still wasn't quite sure he knew what was going on.

The half betazoid took in a deep breath, "My sexual appetite will continue to increase until the plak tow, the blood fever, where it will become irresistible and I won't be able to speak I'll be so caught up in it."

"Will I have to meditate as well? I mean, will it kill me if I don't.?

Sanji shook his head, "You'll be fine, you can deal with it however you want."

Zoro sighed, this was a lot to take in.

"I should probably stay away from you while this is happening," Sanji sighed, "I think I'm going to shut myself into my quarters until it's over."

"Because I'm so irresistible?" Zoro grinned.

"Unfortunately, yes," his tone was resigned.

"Sanji, I'm going to give you this to balance your hormones as best you can," Chopper stick him with a hypospray. "I'll tell luffy what's going on."

"Fantastic."

Zoro could feel pure dread rolling off of Sanji. Almost reflexively, he reached out to brush the feeling away, but Sanji glared over at him. "Don't do that. Don't mess with the bond until this is all done, got it?"

"Alright fine," Zoro said, rather unsure of how the next few days would play out. "Exactly how long is this going to last anyway?"

Sanji considered the question for a moment, "At this point, I think I'll probably reach the blood fever in a day or two and that time should last a few days if I can't resolve it quickly."

"It's going to be a long few days, isn't it?"

"You bet you're ass it is."

Sanji retreated to his quarters to meditate, hoping that he would be able to manage it. Zoro returned to the bridge, he wasn't really feeling any affects from the bond. Or at least he didn't think he was.

He continued on unaffected for half the day, maybe less. As the hours passed, he began for feel more and more annoyed. It wasn't like something was annoying him so much as he just felt generally annoyed. He couldn't sit still, nothing felt right, he had too much energy and his head was starting to pound.

Although Luffy had been alerted to the situation, no one else on the ship really knew what was going on and that was probably for the best. However, it did mean that they couldn't understand Zoro's sudden abundance of irritation. Nami kicked him off the bridge because he was being too much of a pain. He went down to the weapons bay to take out some of his frustrations on his training equipment.

XxxX

Sanji was having trouble concentrating, he felt hot all over and clearing his mind seemed impossible. But he had to do this, for Zoro's sake and for his own life. He tried to keep himself from sensing Zoro's mind, but his mind didn't seem to be listening to him much anymore. He could feel Zoro's building frustration, he just wanted to reach out and brush it away. But he stopped himself just short every time.

XxxX

Zoro could feel Sanji every so often just out of range. Like a hand hovering just over his skin, he just wanted to grab it and drag Sanji toward him and- and what? His brain was getting all foggy. He redoubled his efforts to destroy the punching bag he way laying into but Sanji's presence drifted over him again.

He swore aloud and wondered what would happen if he actually reached out to the blond. Fuck it, it was worth a shot. Zoro extended his mental reach to touch Sanji. The reaction was immediate, Sanji latched to the contact and melted against it, a puddle of frustrated emotion. It just felt so damn good. Why had he been resisting again?

Zoro was pressing closer when Sanji suddenly seemed to become aware of what was happening and blocked him out, sealing himself into his own mind.

Zoro punched the floor in frustration, breaking a few bones in his hand. He had to fall Chopper to fix it.

XxxX

Chopper came in to check on Sanji a day after he had come into sick bay.

"Sanji I don't think this is working," Chopper said, observing the sweat drenched blond.

"What other choice do I have?" Sanji groaned, he had been trying his best but Zoro made that so hard.

"We can always try something else," Chopper said sympathetically.

"I'm open to any options," the blond said, his voice cracking, "God, I just want to punch him in his stupid fucking gorgeous face." He wanted to tear his own face off, anything to distract him from this feeling.

"Don't the vulcans have a ritual for that?" Chopper said with a tilt of his head.

Sanji's eyes suddenly widened, "That's it! The koon-ut-kal-if-fee! I'm so fucking dumb!" he clapped his hands in his enthusiasm.

"The what?" Chopper asked, he knew there was a battle ritual, but that was all he knew.

"It means marriage or challenge, if he challenges me to the kal-if-fee, the passion fight, and wins then the pon farr will be resolved." Sanji grinned, sure it was supposed to be to the death traditionally, but as long as the opponent was rendered unconscious it should be fine.

"But you and Zoro are about evenly matched," Chopper reasoned, "What if you win?"

"This is the only time I hope I don't win in a fight against Zoro," Sanji laughed breathlessly, "but if I win, I claim the right to my mate."

"Are you sure this is the only way?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Tell Zoro and bring him to the holodeck." He stood shakily, walking toward the door. He focused himself on his destination, forcing himself not to stop. He could feel the plak tow ever approaching, it was close now.

Chopper followed Sanji's word, locating Zoro as he was destroying a punching bag in the weapons bay in all his shirtless, manly glory. He almost didn't notice the doctor come through the door and did not stop when he did notice. He had too much unlet energy.

"Zoro," Chopper said over the noise, "Sanji's meditation isn't working."

Zoro paused, "So, what now?"

"He wants to fight you."

"Fight me?" That seemed like something to involve a lot of physical contact.

"There's a vulcan marriage battle ritual, you can fight for yourself," Chopper nodded.

"If I lose?"

"You become Sanji's mate."

Zoro grimaced that the word, it sounded so simple and animalistic, not like anything a sentient and intelligent being should be involved in.

"Will you do it?" Chopper asked.

"I'm always up for a good fight," Zoro grinned, already moving toward the door as Chopper trotted along at his side. He had all of this aggressive frustration building up, why not take it out on the source? Maybe it would make him feel better.

For once, Zoro didn't need to be directed, drawn toward Sanji's presence, despite not knowing the destination. As they were drawn toward the holodeck Zoro felt the throbbing glow of frustration grow stronger with lack of distance.

"Chopper," Zoro said cooly when they were in front of the holodeck door, "I want you to wait outside."

"But what if-" the doctor objected.

"If we need you, we'll call. Have the computer beam us to sick bay if vitals drop," Zoro said seriously, meeting Chopper's concerned eyes.

The small doctor nodded unhappily and retreaded down he hall. Zoro walked through the door, and turned to face Sanji who was watching him intently, his body tense. The program the holodeck displayed showed a desert landscape, the heat was heavy in the air but not quite as intense as the real heat of vulcan.

"So how does this work?" Zoro asked. Sanji's expression did not change. Zoro assumed that the plak tow had set in, they weren't good at talking anyway. Zoro let a deep breath leave his lungs, his body vibrating with the emotion of the pon farr.

Sanji made the first move, lunging forward with more force than was usual. Zoro realized that in his haste, he had neglected to bring his swords or put on a shirt.

"Computer," he called out, fighting off the intense attack, "Three Katanas-" he was going to name a specific set but a kick to the gut cut him off.

"Please specify," chimed the computer's feminine voice.

Zoro hardly had enough time to think as another kick made for his head, "Fuck- Give me my Katanas," he blurted out.

"Please specify," the computer chimed once again.

"Fuck you!"

"Command does not compute; please specify."

"Computer, the Katanas of officer Roronoa Zoro."

The Katanas materialized at his side and he scooped them up.

He blocked more hits after that. They two continued to exchange blows as the internal heat continued to build. Neither wanted to lose, Zoro wasn't sure if he kept fighting for the sake of his pride or for the consequences of defeat.

They were getting nowhere. They seemed to be at a complete draw. Heaving, Zoro examined Sanji's flushed form. It was strange to fight the blond without having him make a noise. Usually, Sanji's tongue was as sharp as a knife and quick as a whip, now there was nothing but determined looks.

Sanji charged forward, and Zoro let him, dodging away at the last moment and lunging at him from the side, tackling him to the ground. As Sanji hit the sandy surface, the air was forced from his lungs. He gasped for air, giving Zoro time to pin him.

Sanji didn't move, he only stared up at Zoro, frozen in place. Normally, he would have fought to throw Zoro off, but for now he was still. The empath let the shields on his mind, which until then had retained a shaky form, crumble away completely, letting waves of raw emotion roll over Zoro.

Zoro, being disoriented by this sudden dramatic change, let his hands fall away from Sanji's arms to just supporting his own weight against the sand. Sanji took the release of his hands as an opportunity to run his fingers up Zoro's arms and over his chest, his fingers letting off tingling sparks at the lack of mental boundary.

For the first time since the start began, Sanji smiled. Zoro found himself stuck, unable to move although he wasn't really sure if it was voluntary or not. He didn't really want to move, so he supposed that it must be of his own will that he let Sanji bring them closer together. Because, like, fuck it, this seemed like a pretty fucking amazing idea right now.

XxxX

Sanji was asleep, Zoro was half asleep. They were both covered in sand. Honestly, Sanji probably could have picked a better environment for this. Oh well, it was a little too late for that now.

Zoro felt like liquid after being so tightly wound and then finally relaxing. The pon farr was resolved, no one was going to die today, which was a great relief. Although, Sanji looked about dead. He was out like a light, all his energy sapped after an exerted effort and little to no sleep in the past week. His face was half smushed into the sand, his stupid pretty face.

Zoro dragged him a little closer, he didn't even stir. His skin felt cool again Zoro's human heat and the heat of the artificial desert landscape around them. Holding him felt nice, it was like being whole when he hadn't even known that part of him was missing. It was a little awkward though, because Zoro was pretty sure he had a few broken ribs and at one point his shoulder had been ripped out of place only to be shoved back in seconds later.

It had all been much more klingon than Zoro would have expected, lots of biting and bone breaking. It was, after all, good luck to break the collar bone on the weddings night in klingon culture, or so Zoro understood it. Zoro suspected that he wouldn't be the only one going to Chopper when this was all over. Sanji defiantly had some broken ribs and maybe some other minor fractures.

Zoro was dreading having to come out of this room, they'd been in there for a solid two days without interruption. Thank fuck for that. Chopper was probably losing his mind worrying about them, someone else probably held him back from charging in. That would have been very awkward indeed.

When they came out of this room everyone, minus maybe Luffy, was going to know what had happened. Zoro couldn't bring himself to care. Right now this felt good and it made him happy, so they could all suck it.

Some time later, Sanji woke up. He still looked like he wanted to sleep for maybe another thousand years, but Zoro thought it was probably as good as it was going to get. Not that he didn't like sleeping in the middle of a sandy desert, but he was starting to miss his bed.

When Sanji's eyes started to close, Zoro nudged him awake.

"What?" Sanji groaned unhappily.

"I don't want to be in here anymore, let's go."

"No, I'm not getting up," Sanji breathed, ready to go back to sleep.

Zoro sat up and quickly put on his own clothes. He jabbed Sanji in the stomach. "Put your clothes on, we're going," he said.

"I'm staying," Sanji mumbled, rubbing the spot Zoro had poker.

The swordsman sighed and hauled Sanji up into a sitting position then proceeded to cram his half torn shirt over his head. Sanji struggled against his own clothes until he managed to get it on right, kicked Zoro in the balls, and put the rest of his clothes on by himself, but he didn't move toward the door. Instead, he sat back down, ready to go back to sleep.

Zoro, after taking a moment to recover, kicked Sanji in the side. "Come on, we are going."

"Go on without me, save yourself. It's okay, I'll forgive you," Sanji waved a hand at him.

Zoro rolled his eyes, "Fucking fine," he said. He walked over to where Sanji lay and picked him up, throwing him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Sanji didn't fuss, but he did made a patenting little noise as his probably broke or fractured ribs ached in protest. Zoro ignored him. "Computer, end program." The program shut down and Zoro walked out the door.

He was hallway to the med bay before he ran into anyone. Usopp gaped at him as he walked by, not stopping to say hello. Zoro didn't really blame him for the odd look, he probably looked like he'd gotten into combat with a zombie. He had some pretty good half hicky, half actual bite marks on his visible skin. Robin and Nami walker by next, probably because Usopp told them about him the second he turned the corner. Zoro glared at them as they went by, grinning with their eyes, Nami even had the gall to give him a thumbs up.

He growled and doubled his walking pace. Chopper was waiting now for them when he walked in. Sanji was slumped into a bed and Chopper started examining him.

They were both all fixed up in about ten minutes, good as new and with an apparently much needed scolding on how much force to use when being 'intimate'.

Zoro carried Sanji bridal style out of the sick bay, but at soon as he was sure Chopper wouldn't see, he set Sanji on the ground and started pulling him along by his boots. Zoro liked this much better than carrying him and he didn't seem to mind it much, seeing as he was asleep. Franky and Usopp saw him drag Sanji by, but he ran in order to avid them. Soon enough, Zoro found his quarters and brought the two of them inside, rolling Sanji up onto the bed and settling down beside him. He was still very tired. And they slept like that; very close and very comfortable.

XxxX

Zoro sipped a glass of apple juice as Sanji aggressively flipped a pancake. He was embarrassed, Zoro could tell.

"You care too much abou-"

"Shut up," Sanji glared at him.

"I'm just saying-"

Sanji kissed him in order to shut him up, "You're just saying nothing."

Zoro sighed, "Is this a bad time to ask about our relationship status?"

"We're together," Sanji said as he focused on his pancakes.

"Really?"

"Uh yeah, dumbass, it's kind of hard to deny all this romance we have going on," Sanji huffed.

"Oh, I didn't know if we could talk about that or not."

"Yep, it's all fine, don't worry about it."

"So, does that make us-?"

"Space husbands? Yes, yes it does."

"Then, that means I can do this?" Zoro threaded his fingers though both of Sanji's hands and kissed him on the corner of his mouth.

"If you do choose," Sanji grinned, not moving back.

"Knock knock," said a voice behind them as Usopp and Chopper walked into the kitchen.

Sanji slid away and continued with his pancakes.

"I'm really glad you're back, Sanji," Chopper said, "We had to eat replicator food and it just wasn't the same."

"I'm glad to be back, I haven't eaten in like," he had to think, "A while." Strangely enough, he was only just starting to get hungry again.

"Was your honeymoon not as enthralling was we all hoped it would be?" Robin asked, stepping into the dining room.

Sanji smiled, "I wouldn't call it a honeymoon," Sanji sighed, "It's so good to see a female face after these long and trying days."

Robin opened her mouth, but was cut off by Luffy's obnoxiously loud voice. "Yes! Sanji's back! Sanji, I want meat!"

Sanji fended off the excited captain with a shoe to the face, "I know! I'm on it, keep your pants on!"

"Yeah, Sanji's had his fulfillment of pants less men for the week!" Nami laughed, taking a seat beside Robin.

"Well, I don't know about that," Zoro said, leaning back in his seat.

"Oh, I know so," Sanji seethed, brandishing his spatula fearlessly.

"Oh damn, Zoro, he had control over your sex life now. How does that make you feel?" Nami snorted.

"Doesn't bother me," Zoro shrugged, "I always get my way."

"Because that's not creepy at all," Sanji rolled his eyes.

"What's not creepy?" Franky asked, taking a seat for breakfast closely followed by Brook.

"Nothing," Sanji said, "Breakfast is ready." He laid out the pancakes along with all the dressings and fruits that went along with them, leaning over Zoro's shoulder to do so. The contact was solid, it felt comfortable and warm, rather domestic. Zoro decided he liked that feeling and would very much like to feel more of it in the future.

Around him, the crew tucked into the meal Sanji had provided and started off another typical day aboard the U.S.S Thousand Sunny. That is, if there was a such thing as a typical day with a crew like this in a place as full of mystery and potential.

He looked over Sanji who had a smear of syrup on his face. He noticed Zoro's gaze and smiled, licking away the syrup. Zoro smiled back feeling a bubble of warmth within him; today was a good day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself.
> 
> I imagine mind melding is like two brains hugging. That's my kind of romance, but hey I'm a little weird.
> 
> The image of Zoro with worms crawling. Through his hair is kind of adorable.
> 
> Poor Sanji, he should have known. Have you ever been in a situation where you where you don't notice something totally obvious? I know I have -_-
> 
> I think that's actually where I decided to end this story. I think. I mean I wrote it like 4 months ago, so I don't really remember. I think I was more that I knew I would be starting school soon so I just didn't write anymore on this. Maybe I'll come back to it, there are so many directions it could go from here. I suppose we'll just see how it goes.
> 
> Anyway, for now this is goodbye and thanks for reading. I hope you liked it :-)
> 
> Live long and prosper.

**Author's Note:**

> Star Trek is literally my favorite thing in the universe ever. 
> 
> This isn't set in any particular time period of Star Trek, it's just kind of a mess of things I felt like putting together, but with the original uniforms because they were the best. I guess because it had the bajorans and stuff it's probably post ds9 but whatever, you probably don't really care.
> 
> Bah, back stories are boring. This is super lazy but I wanted to get the set up out of the way. Thanks if you're still here, I promise this is probably the most... feely, intimate thing I've written. 
> 
> Poor Sanji was destined to be emotionally fucked up. Some back stories were the same, others were changed, meh. I never watched past Nami joining the crew so *shrug*
> 
> XD the eugenics wars of the 1990s, oh Star Trek, you were a little off there. 
> 
> Thanks.


End file.
